


AKA Unexpectedly Expecting

by prinkes



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol Withdrawal, Detox, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Past Abortion, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-06 21:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12826101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prinkes/pseuds/prinkes
Summary: Jessica never expected to fall for the goddamn Devil of Hell's Kitchen/Do-Gooder Lawyer. She also never expected him to show up with a pregnancy test saying "I'm 99% sure, but it could be indigestion, so...?"Now Matt and Jessica deal with the trials and tribulations of pregnancy. Featuring: Matt's uncanny ability to know exactly how the baby is, exactly where to massage her back, and conversations about baptism.





	1. AKA If I Ask You Out, You'll Know It

**Author's Note:**

> But first, the slow-burn.  
> Enjoy.

It's been six months since they saved a city together. Six months since she let him die down in that tunnel. The last thing she expected after that mess, and his pseudo-resurrection, was for Matt Murdock to show up on her doorstep with lilies.

He knows that those are the  _one_ flower she doesn't despise. She knows that he can hear the way her heart skips a beat when she looks at him. That's the oh-so-familiar guilt. (Right? That's the only reason.) Ever since Midland Circle, ever since he's been back, she's been ducking his calls, slipping out Luke's window when she hears a cane on the other side of the door. She doesn't know what she's supposed to say to someone she almost let die. Facing Luke after Reva was one thing, but she's never been good at looking her problems straight in the eye. Not until she absolutely has to. 

And now, she has to.  _Goddammit, Murdock_ , she thinks, just staring at him. His gifts will tell him that she hasn't slammed the door in his face. That she's just looking at him, waiting for him to say something. Because she sure as hell doesn't know what the hell this is.

"Hi, Jessica," he says finally. 

"Murdock," she says, biting down on her lip. Christ, he can probably tell. He probably knows exactly how tense her entire body is, the way her hand is gripping the door so hard the wood is starting to creak under her fingertips. 

"Long time no see," he says. That crooked smirk appears on his face, and immediately, she wants to sock him in the jaw. She  _doesn't_ , that has to count for something right?  

She rolls her eyes (can he hear that?), and for fear of her door breaking in half, she swings it open enough to let him inside. "That's pretty typical for you," she quips. She's never been delicate.

"Pretty typical of you to pull the avoiding act, too," he says breezily, stepping into the apartment. His cane is already folded-up and tucked away. There's no need for pretense between them. 

Jessica just sighs irritably, and walks over to the half-empty bottle of whiskey on her desk. "Screw you," she says simply, glancing back at him over her shoulder. She can't hold his not-quite eye contact for very long. Not without needing to take another sip. "I've been busy. My boss is a real bitch," she jokes, taking another long gulp. Dry humor is about her last line of defense when it comes to him. 

Matt is either ignoring the tension or oblivious to it (and there's very little he's oblivious to), because he just takes a seat on her futon like it's nothing. Like she's not the reason he wound up recovering in a goddamn convent for three months before returning to the world. He's just watching her, that vague smirk still on his face, hardly faltering even when she drains the rest of the bottle and goes into her kitchen in search of more.

"You want a drink?" she calls, because getting rid of him now is an impossibility. A fight she doesn't feel like having - he can be just as stubborn as she can, which is saying something. "There's no food, Malcom ate the last of my peanut butter. But I've got cheap whiskey in abundance."

"Don't you always?" comes Matt's reply. It's tinged, just a little, with that Catholic judgement, but Jessica has long since learned to ignore that. She grabs two mostly clean glasses and a new bottle, walking back into the office. She pours them both a generous glass, has a feeling they'll need it with the conversation they're about to have. The one she's been avoiding for six months. 

The silence hangs heavily over them. She knows it's not really silent to him, that he can hear Robyn moving around upstairs, the sirens outside, the way her jaw is clenching. She doesn't have that curse/luxury. The silence is too much for her, she breaks first. "Can we get this over with?" she sighs, gripping her glass tight. She takes a seat on top of her desk, and stares right at him. If they're going to do this, she'll take it. She could take it with Luke pressed against that bus, she could look goddamn Kilgrave in the eye and tell him all the shit he put her through. She can do this.

But Matt just looks confused. He tilts his head, his stupidly tinted glasses catching the glare of the streetlight outside. "I didn't know my company was such an inconvenience for you," he says, leaning back on her couch. He sets the flowers beside him, and she shakes her head.

"That's not what I meant, asshole," she mutters, and he has the audacity to smirk at that. She feels the familiar flicker of annoyance in her veins. But she doesn't have the right to be annoyed. He's the one that almost died. "Why the hell did you bring  _flowers_?" she asks suddenly, because she doesn't know how to ask what she really wants to know.

Matt is still smirking. He shrugs, one hand running over the petals. "I know they're your favorite," he says. "Trish confirmed it. I asked her, off the air of course," he jokes. 

Jessica just gives him a long look, largely for her own benefit. If she really had laser eyes, he'd probably be a scorch mark on her futon by now. "That doesn't answer the question," she mutters. She pauses, biting her lip, then dives right in. "You're the one that died, Murdock. You're supposed to get the goddamn flowers." She's never been one to dance around the subject for very long.

"I didn't actually die," he reminds her quietly. The smirk finally fades from his face, and he leans forward, his hands folded together as his elbows rest on his knees. His every move is careful, calculated, a habit he can't get rid of from having to perform for so long. She knows a little about that, but she has the opposite reaction. After having to play someone else for eight months, Jessica doesn't  _do_ pretense. So she doesn't bother to hide the discomfort tearing through her. She lets him hear how she gulps down the whiskey, how her free hand grips the desk tightly. She can't do anything about the twisted remnants of her stupid heart pounding so hard against her chest anyway, so she just lets him hear that, too.

"We thought you did," she says finally. There's one more thing he needs to hear, and she can feel the words clawing at her throat. Like shards of glass, cutting her on the inside, slicing her up so much it  _hurts_ and she hasn't even said it yet. "And it was my fault. I'm sor-"

"Jessica." He cuts her off.  _No one_ cuts her off, but Matt has never been like most people. He takes his glasses off, his strikingly light brown eyes, the color of caramel or honey, look right at her. They're blank, unreadable, but she can feel the seriousness of his gaze. "That wasn't your fault. I chose to stay behind. I made that choice." He pauses a moment. "You of all people, you know how important choice is. Let me have this," he says quietly. It's not a question, more like a soft plea.

She takes a long sip of whiskey, draining her glass. "Goddamn Catholics," she mutters after a long moment. "You just can't get enough guilt."

He laughs at that, the sound low and rumbling. It does something to her, but she pretends not to notice. He probably does, because he keeps laughing. Finally, she finds herself laughing with him. The sound is ragged, more like a breathless scoff, but it's genuine. As close to a laugh as she ever gets.

* * *

 

After that, her routine changes.

Matt shows up at her apartment more and more. She finds herself calling him with 'legal questions' for clients, sending people to his little pro-bono law firm. They work together a couple of times. She gets the evidence he needs, he wins the cases in court. After hours (for him anyway, poor sucker is his own boss and still works 9-5), they meet up for drinks. He still has that judgmental look on his face, but he doesn't ever say much. 

She learns that a little hole in the wall dive bar, called  _Josie's,_ is his favorite place to go. She finds herself frequenting the establishment and trying  _not_ to get herself thrown out. On the off-chance she runs into him. She rarely does, he's spending more and more time out as Devil Boy these days. They're not  _friends_ , nothing like that. She doesn't have any goddamn friends. But she has people that aren't goddamn irritating one-hundred percent of the time, and Matt somehow, has become one of those. (Probably when he helped her get Trish away from that Hand asshole honestly. She doesn't wanna think about what it means that he found a way to take the guilt of his death off her shoulders.)

One night, she walks into Josie's, tosses her money down on the bar, only to have the bitchy, burly woman (who Jessica adores honestly), push it back towards her. "Your money is no good here," Josie says. 

Jessica raises a brow. "Excuse the fuck out of me," she says, feeling the fury build up in her chest. She stands up, slamming her hands down on the bar. "Why the hell not?"

The answer doesn't come from Josie, it comes from behind her. "I told her not to serve you."

Jessica wheels around, and there he is, leaning on a pool cue. Asshole probably heard her coming halfway down the block. She glares at him, wonders if he can sense  _that_. "And who,  _exactly_ , gave you that right, Murdock?" she asks, her tone more than a little sharp. She always gets a little testy when it came to shit that stood between her and getting wasted. 

Matt just shrugs, not in the least bit put off by her biting tone. "No one. But Josie is easy to bribe," he says, flashing a grin at the bartender. The woman rolls her eyes and flips him off, and Jessica at least can be amused by how hard Matt has to fight to pretend he didn't notice that. 

Still. He cut her off, and that's  _not_ okay. She keeps her gaze locked on him, arms folded over her chest. "You've got about three seconds to tell me why I shouldn't throw you through Josie's window."

"Besides the fact that I'll call the cops?" Josie calls. Jessica ignores her, waiting on Matt.

Matt, ever the lawyer, smiles diplomatically. "Because I have a counter proposal to you drinking all of Josie's cheapest whiskey."

"I'm waiting," Jessica says, spreading her arms wide.

He sets the pool cue aside, and walks over to her. "Come out with me," he says. It's the  _last_ thing Jessica expects to hear, and he's already got his cane unfurled and halfway out the door before she comes back to her senses.

She catches him just outside, waiting expectantly for her. "This better not be a goddamn date, Murdock."

He smirks. "If I ask you out, you'll know it," he says. And he reaches for her arm, to keep up the charade, even as she follows his lead down the street. 

There's something strangely comforting in those words. And in the feeling of his hand. But she'll never say so aloud.

* * *

 

"You realize I've lived in this city my entire life, right? This shit isn't new to me," Jessica says, sighing as they approach Times Square. Matt, to his credit, knows better than to argue with her when she's like this. He just keeps walking, leading her without being too obvious about it, his cane tapping on the street as they move towards the center of the square. 

Perks of being with a blind guy, no one wants to get too close. Jessica is just thinking she should try this more often, and then realizes that for a second, she  _wanted_ to spend more time with him hanging off her arm. Which is too goddamn weird for words, so she sighs heavily again. "What are we doing here?" She nods towards the billboards. "I've seen this shit before."

"You haven't seen it the way I do," Matt says. He lets go of her arm and turns towards her. If anyone was watching, they'd notice his movements are just a little too fluid. Jessica finds her breath catching in her throat - that happens sometimes, when she sees how graceful he can be. For a guy who relies on the 'clumsy blind guy' schtick to hide his identity, he can move like a goddamn ballerina when he wants to. 

His hand reaches up, slowly. She has time to fight back the flinch as his fingers settle on her cheek. "Close your eyes," he whispers. She hesitates, and he knows it. He gives her a second, then he leans in a little closer. "Trust me, Jessica. Please."

Her jaw clenches. He has to have some idea of the magnitude of what he's asking her. But his tone isn't insistent. It's not a command, it's a suggestion. If she wanted to say no, she could, and she could leave him in the middle of this crowd with minimal guilt. 

Slowly, she shuts her eyes. She can't really feel or hear anything specific at first. The only sensation she's aware of - painfully - is the feeling of his hand on her cheek. Her breath is coming a little harder now, chest starting to heave. His free hand settles on her stomach, and she can't help but tense up at the sudden touch. But he's calm, pulling his hand back a little and resettling it only when her breathing steadies.

"Just breathe," he says quietly. She's surprised at how well she can hear him over the noise of the crowd around them. "And listen. Really listen. People are talking. Their shoes scuffing the pavement. Cars are honking their horns. New York traffic." She can hear the little laugh that leaves his lips, and she wants to roll her eyes, but she tries to follow what he's telling her. She's always been observant, but this is different. This feels more invasive somehow, leaves her a little off-balance. But Matt asked her to trust him. Matt, who knew how to tell her it wasn't her fault, and actually make her believe that most days. 

She breathes. She listens. The sounds slowly separate in her mind. She can pick out a single person, yammering on a cellphone. A child begging their mother for ice cream not far away. "Do you hear the billboards?" he asks, and she's about to retort that billboards don't make a goddamn noise, when he continues. "The buzz of electricity. You can feel it too, under your feet. The whole square is thrumming, like it's alive. Like the city has a heartbeat."

And she hears it.  _Feels_ it. She spends so much time trying to drown herself in liquor, trying not to feel and hear and notice shit like this. It's too much, but his hands are a focal point that she can come back to every time. Every time it starts to wash over her, she focuses on those hands. They're cold, compared to her skin, calloused from fighting no matter how much goddamn fetish armor he wears when he's out punching shitheads in the face. But she leans into the touch, for the first time in what feels like years, she embraces it.

She's not sure exactly how it happens. All she knows is, suddenly he's close. His body pressed against hers, the hand that was on her stomach is on her waist now, and the hand on her cheek slides down to her chin, tilting it up. And she's still leaning towards him. Closer and closer. And for a second, she can hear his breath, the sharp inhale right before his lips meet hers.

* * *

 

They start the night as one cliche, and end as an entirely different, far less romantic one. 

It's gotta be late, (or early depending on your life choices), when she wakes up, entangled in his stupidly expensive, ridiculously comfortable silk sheets. They're both still naked. His body is stretched out next to hers, his arm slung lazily around her at one point. But he's asleep now, deeply. However good his sense are, he won't notice if she slips out now. She could be home and in her own bed before he wakes up, easily.

She sits up, but she doesn't move quite yet. Instead, she just takes a second to look at him. Because she has the time, and this might be her last chance to actually take him in. There's more muscle tone to him than she'd expected. (Not quite enough to take  _everything_ she could give, he's not unbreakable like Luke, but he certainly gave it the old college try.) Scars litter his body, long and jagged, in various discolored stages of healing. Some are ancient, almost fully healed, just a reminder now. Some are fresh. He's still got a bandage on his shoulder, and a fresh bruise blossoming on his ribs. 

Strangely, she finds herself wanting to trace each and every one. She wants to photograph them, memorize them, like they're pieces of the puzzle Matt Murdock has become. Like they'll give her the answers about him that she desperately wants. 

But she can't. That'd be creepy and take her to the next level of voyeur, not to mention she's pretty sure she doesn't  _want_ to know the answers. Because she has a feeling what they are, and right now, she's in that blissful place that her clients are at right before they knock on the door. They have their suspicions, but no proof. They can keep denying the truth. They don't have to do anything about it.

But she has to do something about  _this_. Before it becomes something terrible, toxic, ugly. Before she ruins another person.

Leaving now would be a hell of a lot better than shooting him in the head, at least. But it's  _Matt_ , and she knows that he doesn't do that casual-sex thing that she's come to rely on over the years, to scratch that aching itch within her. Matt would rather suffer through celibacy than have a meaningless fling. Which is exactly the answer that worries her.

She should leave. And she can - nothing is keeping her here. She could roll over, find her clothes, and slip out his window. She could block his number, could stop going to Josie's, could ignore the lilies if he brought more. (Stupid romantic idiot, probably would.) 

But something else keeps her still. That voice, the one in the back of her mind. The one that was the only thing keeping her alive and fighting during Kilgrave, the one that she relies on more than any other. Her intuition, her last scrap of sanity. It's whispering to her now.  _Stay, stay, stay._

That voice is an idiot.

"I can't stay," she says, out loud, just to remind herself. Matt stirs a little under her, and she freezes, biting her lip hard. He rolls over, towards her, his other arm coming over to meet his first. She's stronger than he is, despite how heavy and warm his arm feels. It'd take nothing to push him off, to crawl out of his arms, out of his bed, out of his life. 

She closes her eyes. Just like she did at Times Square. The memories of that moment hit her, and maybe it means something that it's the first thing she thinks of. She doesn't think about laying next to Luke and scrambling out of his apartment half-dressed. She doesn't think about being chained down by nothing but Kilgrave's commands in a cold hotel room. She thinks about Matt's hand on her cheek, an anchor in the darkness and cacophony. Maybe that's one of his abilities, too, because right now, his arms feel the same way. 

In the end, she doesn't leave. 

She doesn't know what that means.

* * *

 

She doesn't know what it means that two months later, she's sleeping over at Matt's every night. He can't stand the blankets at her place, and she can't really blame him. She doesn't know what it means that she hasn't slept with anyone else in two months. She doesn't know what it means that she's drinking less, laughing more. She doesn't know what it means that Trish insists on inviting them both over to dinner. (They order Thai, because they all know how much she goddamn hates Chinese food.) Trish doesn't invite Luke or Danny, it's not a Defenders dinner party. It's more like taking Matt to meet her goddamn parents. (Except ya know, they're dead. And so are his.) 

Maybe she does know, but she sure as hell doesn't  _say_ it. Neither does Matt. He might be a judgmental Catholic asshole at times, but he knows better than to push her. They're both content to just let whatever the hell this is  _be_. On Good Days, she almost feels normal, sitting on his couch, listening to some record while he hums along. And on Bad Nights... well, she's not alone anymore. That's something.

They find a balance. Simple things. She picks out his ties for work, the stupidest ones she can, and he lets her get away with it. He buys her a brand new camera, to make up for the one he smashed. Neither of them cook, but they alternate who buys the take-out. He sits on the opposite end of the couch on the nights she doesn't want to be touched, knows without saying a word. He mocks her relentlessly during her hangovers, but he leaves water and asprin on the nightstand regardless. He stays up with her as long as he can on the nights she can't sleep. She calls him every name in the book when he slips on the costume - Devil Boy, Satan's Little Helper, Horned Idiot, Red Moron, Gimp Man - but she also listens to police scanner and keeps track of what kind of shit he gets himself into. 

And the sex is _good_. Better than it goddamn should be. Jessica's abilities are only good for smashing clocks, doors, and faces, but Matt's really are gifts, especially when it comes to the female form. Plus, there's all that Catholic guilt that makes him very, very generous. 

Things are so good, she's actually scared. Things never stay good for long in her life, not ever. She spends half her time staring at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

When he wakes up one morning, and gives her an odd look - she thinks,  _this is it_. He leaves the apartment in a hurry, barely saying anything. Last night everything had seemed normal, but maybe it's just that  _time_. Time for shit to fall apart. She has cases to work, but she blows them off because she can't focus. She's too busy wondering what the hell happened - if he wants to leave, she won't fight him, but she wants to know  _why_. She's earned that much, hasn't she?

She lingers around his apartment all day. She can't sleep, she's too restless, and she's already snooped through his shit. She thinks about calling Trish, but that's so goddamn teenager-y that she resists. Instead, she goes up to the roof, and snaps pictures of the people down below. She wants a drink, but she woke up feeling nauseous already. Plus Matt's house has suspiciously become a dry county, slowly over the past couple months. So has Trish's, Malcom's, Luke's, and Danny's. Goddamn traitors.

Hours later, she spots him walking up the street. Apparently, he 'sees' her, too, because he ducks into the alleyway next to the building, and parkours his way up to the roof. "Could've taken the fire escape," she calls to him, not looking away from the picture she's currently taking. The man across the street is trying on his wife's clothes, and it's a little sad how secretive he is about it. But mostly, its his wife's fashion sense that's tragic. "Blue is not his color. Or his wife's," she mutters, flicking through the pictures on her camera. 

She's waiting for him to say something, but Matt's just standing there silently behind her. It's aggravating, especially after the way he ghosted out this morning. Not that she  _cares_ , she's not a needy goddamn - whatever they are. She just wishes he'd get to the point already. 

"Can we go inside?" he asks finally, and his voice is tight and pinched for some reason. Jessica looks back at him now, one eyebrow raised. He clutching a plastic grocery bag in his hand, so tightly his knuckles are white. And his head is cocked to the side, the way he does when he hears something, but can't quite believe it. To anyone else, it'd look like confusion, but Jessica knows him better. It's  _concern_.

Jessica huffs out a sigh and stands up. "Christ, Murdock," she says, and he blanches a little, the way he always does when she 'takes the Lord's name in vain.' "You don't have to go through the ceremony."

"Ceremony?" he repeats, confusion painting his face now. He shakes his head. "Jessica, it's not th- can we just do this inside, please?"

She rolls her eyes (and yes, now she knows he  _can_ hear that, and hates it). She plants her feet firmly on the rooftop, refuses to go any further. "No," she says simply. She folds her arms over her chest, clenches her jaw. "If you're going to break up with me, do it here, so I can go the hell home," she says, trying to ignore the way her chest tightens. She feels nauseous again, but she refuses to let it show. Even if he can probably tell, the asshole. 

Matt stumbles back a half step. "Break up -  _no_ ," he says, and it's her turn to be confused. He bits his lip for a second, then slowly takes a step towards her. He detaches a hand from the grocery bag and touches her arm gently. She doesn't touch him back, even more irritated now that she's also confused. "That's not what this is about. That's not - I don't want that," he says, and despite the odd hesitancy in his voice, she  _wants_ to believe him.

Christ. Jessica sighs, and runs a hand through her hair, head and steely gaze dropping down to the ground. "Screw you, Murdock," she murmurs, but there's a hint of their normal humor in her voice now. Just a tiny thread. "It's a two month fling, I'm not supposed to care this much."

"Three actually," he says, and his hand is on her chin, tilting her face up. He's smiling at her, not smirking. A genuine smile that almost pulls one out of her. Instead, she forces a glare that doesn't really have any bite to it. "And you're not a fling to me."

"Because that'd be ungodly, right? A sin?" she presses, fighting back a smirk.

It's supposed to be funny, the kind of joke they make all the time, but Matt's smile is a little pained. "Trust me," he says. "I've committed far worse."

"Oh I believe that. What you did with your tongue, that's a one-way ticket to Hell," she says. But his smile is still just a little strained, and his laughter noticeably absent. She hadn't realized until this moment how much she relied on that sound, the predictability of it. He's distracted, lost in his own thoughts, his head tilted downward at an odd angle. "Matt," she says, and this gets his attention. His face finds hers. "What's going on?"

With a little sigh, he lifts up the grocery bag and hands it to her. She takes it carefully - she remembers what happened to Ms. DeLuca, and while she's pretty sure Matt isn't handing her a bomb, her paranoia is less logical. What's inside though, takes her so much by surprise that she's pretty sure she would've preferred a bomb.

She blinks up at Matt, and steps back. "Is this a goddamn joke?" she asks, and there's no trace of humor or playfulness in her voice now. Matt shakes his head slowly, makes no move to reach for her. A part of her wishes he would, the other half knows that if he does, she's going to toss him off the roof. She looks back into the bag, and her stomach ties itself into a knot. The nausea seems suddenly sinister. 

"You're pregnant," Matt says. "I'm pretty sure of it, but it could be indigestion. Maybe food poisoning. So I bought you that." 

He can  _hear_ that she's pregnant. She mulls this over for a minute, a thousand thoughts racing through her mind. Finally, she looks up at him, and leads the way back to the fire escape. "God, you're weird," she tells him, and then she climbs inside to take the stupid test. 


	2. AKA Can You Hear This?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica locks herself in the bathroom, and Matt does the only logical thing: he calls Trish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 chapters in, and none of the things I promised in the original summary! Hooray!
> 
> So this is actually turning out to be far less crack and far closer to my heart than expected... Just like JessMatt actually.

It's been an hour. Matt's starting to get worried.

Granted, he's never had to take a pregnancy test, but he's pretty sure they aren't this complicated. He could hear that she took the, uh, 'appropriate steps' some time ago. (He imagines saying that to her, phrasing it that way. He doesn't even have to think very hard to imagine her response.  _I pissed on a stick, Murdock, there's nothing appropriate about it. Also, creepy_.)

He'd asked the cashier to read the box for him, an embarrassing moment for them both, but pregnancy tests don't commonly come in braille. Apparently, it was only supposed to take a few minutes for the signs to appear. One line for negative. Two for positive.

Since it's been an hour -- and coupled with the fact that he can tell from her breathing and the distribution of her body-heat, that she's been sitting on the floor staring at the stick for that entire hour -- he's pretty sure he can guess how many lines showed up. 

But he already knew. He can't see those lines, he has no idea what they look like, what shapes they form or if they even touch, but he doesn't need to. He could hear it the second he woke up. He didn't recognize it for what it was at first, but he's spent three months listening to her. Getting attuned to every part of her that she allowed him to get close to, only if she allowed it. He'd read enough about Kilgrave in her file (and had enough basic decency) to know that anything less than her explicit consent was likely to get him socked in the jaw, or worse. And deservedly so.

He remembers the first night they talked about it. 

* * *

 

It was maybe the third or fourth time. That moment, that limbo when things were just starting to tilt away from 'accidental fling' and teeter towards something more solid -- after all, it wasn't like she was tripping into his bed. She was choosing to be there. But neither of them were good at defining exactly what was happening, and Matt wasn't going to bring it up first. Jessica was far more skittish than he was, and if he chased her away now, just when things were getting tantalizing close to  _something_ , he'd hate himself. (She thought he was a self-flagellating Catholic already, but she had no idea. She wasn't the only one who fell into that pit of self-loathing every now and again.) 

They were laying there together. Jessica's heart was still thumping, beating rapidly in her chest like a rabbit about to take off, but she didn't make any move to leave. He had learned by now to wait out that brief flash of panic that overtook her afterwards, and it grew shorter each time. She just needed her space at first -- so he was laying on his back one side of the bed, and she was on her stomach on the other. He was contemplating the word  _blissful,_ and wondering if a blind man could blissful stare at his ceiling if he technically saw the impressionistic outline of it, when she turned to him.

"Are you listening to me?" she asked suddenly, propping herself up on her elbows. With some people, it was hard to get a read on them, to figure out exactly how they were standing or sitting. His impressions were far from perfect. But with Jessica, everything was so direct, so forward. He never had to wonder with her. At least, not when it came to her physically. 

He turned his head towards her, not solely for her benefit like she might think. He drank in the 'sight' of her every chance he got. The fire that burned in her was unlike anyone else. More intense, sharper, brighter -- like the flames were starbursts, wild and out of control, but so beautiful. It was like staring into the sun, so in a way, he was lucky he was already blind. "What do you mean?" he asked. Carefully, slowly, he moved his hand forward, until his fingertips brushed against the skin of her back, drawing goosebumps in their wake. She burned so hot, his hands always felt cold on her skin.

"Your thing," she said, not leaning into his touch, but not pulling away either. "With the -- heartbeats and breathing and shit. Do you do that to me?" There was something strangled in her voice, though her words were tough and littered with curses. There was vulnerability there she was desperately trying to mask.

Matt sat up, rolled on his side so he was closer. She didn't move away, still a good sign, and his hand continued to trace patterns down her spine. Reading was one of the few pleasures left to him, but the feeling of Jessica Jones' skin was better than any book he'd ever read. "I can't exactly turn it off," he said, knowing that even if she wasn't a human lie detector, she could smell bullshit a mile off. He never wanted to lie to her, he'd been down that road. "But I can... distract myself." He nodded towards his bedroom window. "I'm listening to the cats outside. To the drunk man two blocks down singing 'Don't Stop Believing.' Off-key, by the way," he added, smirking at her. She turned her head, buried it in the pillow. Probably to hide that she was smirking, too. 

He took a breath, and continued, his hand moving to her hair, playing with it gently. "Sometimes I can't help it. You're very... you make me  _want_ to listen to you. When your heart skips a beat, or you gasp --"

"I don't gasp. I'm not a Victorian goddamn lady," Jessica replied, and he didn't need supersenses to know she'd rolled her eyes. 

Matt just smirked. "Whatever you say, Jessica," he whispered, reveling in the feeling of her silky-smooth hair, softer than his sheets. Softer than anyone would expect of any part of her, but beneath that rough-and-tumble, take no shit exterior, she had so many soft parts. "Point is... I try. Not to do that to you." He paused, his hand stilling for a moment. "It feels wrong," he said, brows knitting in concentration. He wanted to say this right. "I don't -- I never want to make you uncomfortable, Jessica."

She turned towards him now, her body shifting as she pushed blankets and sheets out of the way. And then her body was pressed against his, her head on his shoulder, her tantalizing soft hair cascading down across his chest, almost tickling, like a whisper of touch. She was so  _warm_ , so solid, and his arms wrapped around her on instinct, but her own arm had snaked around his waist, too, and her lips were pressed against his jaw. It was his turn to gasp lightly.

"You can listen sometimes," she murmured, moving her lips up to kiss him properly. "Just don't be a creep about it."

* * *

From there on, it had been a game of give and take. On nights when she entangled her body with his, when her lips ghosted against his ear and she whispered  _Can you hear this, Murdock?_ , he focused all of his senses on her. He memorized what the blood in her veins sounded like as the adrenaline rushed through her. The smell of her hair, simple shampoo and nothing even close to perfume, quickly became a scent he could pick out a block away. He was as reverent to the sounds of her breath, the rise and fall of her lungs, as he was to his own God. And her heart -- her heart was unlike anyone else's. Fluttering at times, quick to kick up, in anger or frustration or excitement, but always so  _strong,_ it drew him in every time. In three months, he'd made a mental map of every point on her skin that made her lips curl into a genuine smile, or fall open in a moan. He read her over and over, and let her do the same, with her eyes, her fingers, her lips, her tongue. 

And on the nights when she kept her distance, when her sarcastic quips had a little extra bite to them, and he could just barely hear the street names she murmured to herself from across the room, he turned his attention elsewhere. He listened to the buzz of electricity in his building, the neighbors' television down below, distracted himself with the smell of the Thai restaurant around the corner. They didn't talk about it, but she always let him know when he could listen and when she needed space. 

So right now, he's sitting on his couch, flipping through a case file, pretending that he doesn't know his girlfriend is on his bathroom floor. He isn't listening for street names, or checking to see if he can smell the bittersweet tang of salty tears on her cheek. If she wants him to know, she'll tell him. She always says what she wants, she doesn't play games like Elektra had, doesn't dance around things and give a show of politeness like Karen. 

But he can't exactly leave her, either. He can't focus on the case file anyway, so he sets it aside. "I'm stepping out for a second," he calls, just so she'll know. If she hears him, she doesn't acknowledge it, but maybe she can't. This isn't exactly a typical day for either of them. This is one kind of panic attack that he can't help her through.

There's only one person who could do that.

Matt walks up his stairs to the roof. Jessica's hearing, thankfully, isn't as sharp as his own. He has a feeling she wouldn't appreciate this at first, but he isn't going to let her sit comatose in his bathroom without at least trying.

He takes his phone with him. On the rooftop, the smell of the city hits him hard, the warmth of the fading sunlight, the slight chill in the air. He can hear streetlamps flickering below, so it's late. Late enough that she won't still be at work. 

"Call Trish Walker," he says down to his phone, and it beeps in confirmation before staring to ring.

It only takes a few rings for her to answer -- she's a tad more reliable than her sister in that regard. Her phone is never dead. "Trish Walker," comes the professional voice on the other end of the line. It occurs to Matt that he's never actually called her before, though Jessica had given him her number for 'emergencies or what the fuck ever,' some time ago.

"Hi, Trish," he says, smiling into the phone. "It's Matt."

"Is Jessica okay?" He doesn't need to be next to her to know that her heart rate has just skyrocketed.

"She's fine," Matt says quickly. Then he pauses, biting his lip. "Well... She's not hurt."

Trish inhales sharply on the other end of the line. "What happened? Where is she?"

"Currently?" Matt asks. "She's on my bathroom floor. She's uh, not exactly speaking to me, so I thought --"

"What did you do?" Oh boy. Matt grew up an only child, hadn't really made a friend until college. He sometimes forgot how protective these two could be of each other. 

But he doesn't know how to answer her, and he can hear her impatience on the other end of the line. The phone picks up her fingers tapping on her counter. Granite, maybe, he thinks, which is definitely not what he should be focusing on.

"It's more... What  _we_ did," he says finally. Trish doesn't say anything, just waits for the explanation, not letting him off the hook. She's more like Jessica than she knows. "Maybe it's better if she tells you. Would you mind coming over? I'll spring for dinner."

She's already moving, grabbing a bag, keys. "Anything but Chinese," she says. "You know how she feels about Chinese."

"I do." He doesn't know the details, but he can guess. "I'll see you soon, Trish." 

He hangs up, dials the Thai place, and waits. This is either going to help, or blow up in his face. 

It's surprising how many of his choices end up with those outcomes.

* * *

 

The Thai is waiting and ready by the time Trish gets there. Traffic in New York is a nightmare, he's honestly surprised she still drives. But it's not like he's had a lot of experience with it -- maybe a car is worth it somehow. 

He lets her inside, and she pushes past him immediately. He's not offended. Jessica is her top priority, always has been. He'd be a fool to stand in the way of that with either of them. "Down the hall, to the left," he tells her.

Trish mumbles a quick thanks, and takes off to find Jessica. Matt sits down at the table, knowing that he can't be a part of this. It's between them now. But he hears Trish simply push the bathroom door open -- she's the one person who can get away with pushing Jessica's boundaries. And then comes the soft gasp as she sees it. Jessica mutters something, but Matt deliberately taps his fingers on the table to drown her out. He's not an eavesdropper -- well, not when it comes to this anyway. 

They start talking. Matt can hear the back and forth, without discerning the exact words, and he takes it as a good sign that Jessica is responsive. He figures they'll be a while, so he starts eating. Which gives him enough to focus on that he'll be able to give them the privacy they need right now. 

Half an hour and two helpings of Thai Pumpkin Curry later, Trish walks back out. She seems exhausted, like she just went ten rounds in the ring. Matt glances up at her, doesn't have to pretend to look a little to the side. There's no secrets between Trish and Jessica, after all, she knows exactly who she is. 

"How is she?" he asks softly, gesturing to the chair across from him. Trish sits down, and grabs a box of food. The Pad Woo Sen, he notices, can't help but notice. He has to focus on this, to try and keep his promise to Jessica. That he won't listen to her when she doesn't want him to. 

Trish picks at the food for a minute, but doesn't really eat. "She said she'll talk to you now," she says finally. Her eyes are on him, Matt can feel it. He wonders if the color is as piercing as her gaze might seem. "If you guys needed condoms, all you had to do was ask."

The words maybe aren't meant to be a joke, but Matt lets out a nervous laugh. Trish is smiling too, trying to fight it, but failing. She takes a large bite. It's only then that he notices how fast her heart is pounding. It's so different from Jessica's, all of her is, but it's the same thread of panic. She's holding something back, and the curiosity and concern burn him like hellfire. 

He waits, but she doesn't say anything. Nothing about whatever it is she wants to tell him, but isn't. "I'll go see her then," he says, pushing his chair back.

"Wait," Trish says immediately. Her heart jumps in her chest, and Matt pauses. He tilts his head towards her, listening for a moment. Trying to figure out the details in between those pounding heartbeats.

"Trish..." he says quietly, his hands ticcing unconsciously against the table. "What is it?"

She taps her fork against the box, her own nervous habit. The tension in the room is palatable, even without his senses telling him that. It's like a thick, heavy cloud, pressing down on all of them. Even Jessica, who still hasn't come out -- or moved, from what he can tell. 

Finally, Trish sets her fork down, and pushes the food aside. "There's something you should know," she says, with the same authority she uses on her talkshow, the same matter-of-fact tone. "Something Jessica wants you to know. But she doesn't know how to tell you, so she asked me to."

Matt wilts a little. "She can tell me anything," he says, a trace of sadness in his voice. He's not sure why, or where this feeling of dread is coming from, but he can't shake it. "Anything she wants to."

Trish's hand reaches out, covers his ticcing one, stilling it. She's smiling again, gently. "She knows that. She does. But you know  _her_ ," she says pointedly. And other any circumstance, it might be a joke. "She's not good at talking about... well, anything."

He laughs breathlessly, but there's no humor in it. "I've noticed," he says quietly. He doesn't pull his hand away from hers. It's not as hot as Jessica's, but there's a warmth there. 

Trish squeezes his hand a little. Hard as she can, since she doesn't have to hold back, and then she pulls away. "You know about him, obviously," she says, and Matt confirms it with a nod. They don't say his name, that's an unspoken rule. Only Jessica is allowed to toss it around carelessly, a way for her to take back her life from a man who haunts her from beyond the grave. Trish continues. "You know what he did to her. Some of it. But there's things... things that were never reported, that never came out in the trial or in the papers. Things no one knows." She pauses, he can hear how her brows knit together, how her teeth pull at her bottom lip. "I think there's parts of it that even I don't know."

Matt lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. But he doesn't say a word. This is Jessica's story, told through Trish. His job is to do what he does best -- to listen.

She sits back in her seat, the wood creaking beneath her. He catches the scent of her perfume, hears the swish of her hair in a pony-tail. And of course, the rapid, unsteady beating of her heart. "I don't know if she even would've told me this part if she didn't need someone there with her," Trish says quietly, her voice barely a whisper. But of course he hears it. "If -- if there was a closer clinic, if there was a way for her to do it alone, she would have."

His heart stops on the word  _clinic_. The pieces are starting to come together in his mind, but he can't quite make out the bigger picture. Story of his life. (Or maybe, just maybe, he doesn't want to. Doesn't want to know this. But he has to.)

Trish, for her part, is putting on a good show that would fool anyone who couldn't hear her racing pulse. She tosses her hair back, holds her chin high. "She was pregnant before," she says, putting the final nail into the coffin. "With his child. And she couldn't -- couldn't take the risk that whatever was inside her, might turn out like him." Matt knew it before she said it, but he still can't breathe. He's paralyzed, and a part of him knows that's a good thing. Because if he wasn't, the devil would be let loose, and he'd go hunting after a dead man, burning the city to the ground in the wake of a fruitless quest to avenge the one person in the world who absolutely did not need someone else to fight her battles. 

His mind is lost for a minute, he actually doesn't notice that Trish has moved to stand beside him. Not until her hand is on his shoulder. He tilts his head up at her, wondering if his shock and his anger and his fear are all painted across his face, in the micro-expressions he can hear, but never see. "It was the hardest thing she ever had to do," Trish says firmly. "Harder than facing him, you understand? In her mind, he made her a murderer twice over." She bites her lip again, and her hand squeezes his shoulder. "She believes in choice and everything, of course she does. And she knows that, logically, she couldn't have... But to her, that baby that never really got to be a baby? That was his worst victim. He ruined so many people's lives, but he took that baby's away completely. I've tried telling her that, but... You know how she is."

Matt nods, not trusting himself to speak yet. He takes a minute, breathing in and out the way Stick taught him to. Focusing himself. Recentering. He can't help himself, he's drawn to Jessica, the shape of her two rooms away, the pull of her heartbeat, steadier than either his or Trish's right now. So she's hit that point, where she's so low there's nowhere else to fall. 

He stands up, puts his own hand on Trish's shoulder. "Thanks for telling me," he says. 

She nods, then catches herself. "Of course," she says. "What are you going to do now?"

Matt offers her a weak smile, and adjusts his glasses. "I'm going to talk to my girlfriend."

There's no missing the smile on Trish's face now. He walks her out first, imploring her to take some food with her since he's disrupted her night like this. Just as she crosses the threshold, she turns back to him, and plants a kiss on his cheek. "I'm glad she has you," she says. 

He nods to her. "I'm glad she has you, too."

* * *

 

He knocks on the bathroom door before opening it. Just to give her some warning, even though she's waiting for him. 

Just like he already knew, she's on the floor. Knees drawn up to her chest, back pressed against his shower. Arms wrapped around herself tightly, holding herself together with every ounce of strength she has. Her heartbeat had been steady, but as soon as he steps into the room, it picks up the pace. 

He doesn't say anything at first. Just moves to sit down beside her, and she doesn't reach for him. But she doesn't inch away either. She lets his body and hers meld together a little, blurring the distinction in his mind. 

She swallows hard, keeps her head pointed forwards, staring at nothing in particular on the far wall, he'd guess. "You talked to Trish?" she asks, voice just a little too tight to sell the cavalier attitude she's trying to have.

His hand falls to the floor instead of answering, finds her boot. She always wearing her boots inside, he doesn't even bother asking her not to. He trails his fingers upward, up her leg, until he finds her hands. Clenched so tightly around her leg that her knuckles must be stark-white. But she doesn't fight him when he gently pulls her hand away, envelops it in his own. 

He needs to do this right, and that means letting the silence lie for a moment. It's never really silent for him, but his entire world has tunneled down to Jessica right now. He listens to her, knows that her hand in his is permission. Her chest heaves, her muscles creaking as they tense and untense, over and over, his breath coming shorter and sharper with each passing second. It doesn't take long. Jessica Jones is the strongest person he knows, but she can only hold back for so long until she breaks. Until the sob cuts through the air.

Just like that, the tension snaps. She sobs, and her body melts. She goes limp, like she was so wound up she finally snapped, like she's falling. But he catches her, his arms wrapping around her, her head falling to his chest. And she lets herself -- trusts him enough to let herself fall. 

He strokes her hair, once more hit by how soft it is. Presses a kiss to the top of her head. She's shaking, every part of her trembling from exhaustion and stress (and if he had to guess, the lack of a drink all day), but eventually, even that stops. He can feel the wetness her terrified tears left on his shirt, but her sobs slow and fade away, and only then does he speak.

"Whatever you want, Jessica. I'm with you either way." She shifts in his arms, her heartbeat still erratic, but she doesn't answer. "Do you want it?" he asks simply.

Her head tilts up now, and he can feel those eyes on him. Looking for any trace of doubt, of a lie, but she won't find one. 

"Very, very much," she creaks out, voice hoarse and ragged. 

He nods. "All right then," he says, his hand reaching up to cup her face. "New chapter." 

 


	3. AKA Congratulations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've decided to do it. Jessica Jones and Matt Murdock are having a baby. Now they just have to tell everyone else. 
> 
> Featuring everyone's favorite Defenders characters!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: write a stupid fic about JessMatt being pregnant  
> Dark Me: MAKE IT SAD
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's commented or bookmarked or left kudos. Means a lot to me!

The bed was soft. Too soft, the silk felt sinister against her skin. And she was _freezing_. So cold, when she usually ran so hot. Where the hell was she? She tried to look around, but she was so bleary-eyed she could barely make out anything. It was like there was a fog in her brain, a haze hanging heavy in the air, undisturbed by the draft whistling through the room, making her shiver. She was _naked_ , she realized suddenly. Completely, utterly, and she didn’t want to be. She tried to reach for a blanket, for something, _anything_ to cover herself, because this was starting to seem familiar. Her chest was tightening, and the fog was thicker, and her hand _wouldn’t move_. She blinked at her fingers, strained against an invisible weight, a weight she could only hear in her head. _Stay. Stay still as you can._

Something moved in the corner of the room. She couldn’t turn her head to look, couldn’t move an inch, but it was slipping towards her. Like a shadow. Ghost-like fingers listing over her stomach, but the pressure was somehow immense. It terrified her, and she wasn’t sure why, but she needed it to stop. It was more terrifying than his incessant, hiss-like whispering. _Jessica… Jessica… Jessica…_

* * *

“Jessica?”

She awakes with a start. That isn’t his voice, it’s Matt’s, calling her name from across the room. Jessica doesn’t respond right away, her mind scrambling to pick fiction from reality, to separate out what had just been a dream.

There are silk sheets under her, but she’s dressed. Still wearing her tank top and bra, apparently Matt hadn’t been able to coax her out of much else before she collapsed into his bed. Her chest is heaving, but she _can_ move. She proves it by immediately drawing herself up onto her hands and knees.

“Main Street,” she murmurs. She knows Matt could hear, but he’s suddenly busying himself with his cufflinks. He knows this isn’t for him. “Birch Street.” Slowly, she’s starting to feel more solid, her limbs less like jello. “Higgins Drive.” It was just a dream. All of it, a dream. She’d been sleeping on her stomach, that’s strange. Explains the pressure. But not the fear, why was so she so afraid of his hand on her stomach? There were worse places… No, no she in’t going there. She screws her eyes shut, inhales deeply. “Cobalt Lane.”

Behind her, the mattress squeaks, dips with Matt’s weight as he sits down. He clears his throat, just to let her know that he’s there, so she doesn’t jump when his hand brushes her shoulder. “Morning,” he says softly, as if she hasn’t just talked herself down from a panic attack, one he could sense as clearly as she felt it.

At least he knows better than to say _good_ morning.

She sighs deeply, shaking her head as she sits back on her knees. “Hi,” she says, brushing the hair out of her face. She holds her head. It’s aching, and she doesn’t know why. It doesn’t feel like a hangover, she can’t even remember –

 _Shit_.

The pregnancy test. The bathroom. Trish. _Matt_ , sitting with her on the floor, not saying a word as she crumbled into his chest. Collapsed under the weight of another secret he knew, another bit of the crushing shame she felt constantly. It all comes rushing back to her. That part wasn’t a dream. That part is real.

_Double shit._

Jessica looks back at him, her breathing steady, but her heart pounding against her ribs. Matt is already dressed, no suit today, just his casual button-up. She’s grateful. After a dream like that, she hates seeing him in suits, even if they are so shabby they’re barely the same.

He looks so _normal_. Like nothing’s changed, like it’s another typical day. His glasses are sitting just a little crookedly on his face, and she reaches up to fix them on instinct. She’s not sure when that sort of thing became so easy, when she became capable of just casually reaching for him.

Matt smiles that infuriatingly pretty smile, and nods his thanks. “I’m going out,” he tells her, moving a little closer. His arm wraps around her waist, thumb brushing against her exposed hipbone. But it doesn’t leave her feeling exposed. It feels like the opposite.

“Where?” she asks, because she doesn’t want to think about that too long. Christ, they’re having a _baby_ together, and she doesn’t want to think about how his hand on her hip makes her feel. Jessica Jones, paradigm of mental health.

“Breakfast with Foggy. And Karen,” he says, buttoning up his shirt the rest of the way. “I figured… They should probably know.” His head tilts almost imperceptibly down, towards her stomach. Or more accurately, what’s inside.

Jessica shivers, can’t help herself. She pulls away from him, stands up to look for her jeans. Matt has left them on the nightstand, neatly folded. _Freak_ , she thinks, smirking a little as she pulls them on.

Matt stands up too, grabs his cane from the dresser. He doesn’t need it for anything but appearances, but it sits so naturally in his hands. She’s painfully aware of his eyes – or _whatever_ – on her, as she pulls her boots on, scans the room for her bag and her jacket.

They’re not in here, he must’ve left them in the other room. So Jessica walks past him, out into the living room. The annoyingly bright billboard is dimmed by the morning sun, but it still doesn’t do much for her head at the moment. Her jacket is laying across his couch, her bag right next to it. He knows her – and that’s almost more terrifying than anything else happening.

“Do you want to come?” he asks, and she turns around to look at him. He’s standing in the bedroom doorway, leaning against the frame. Twirling his cane over in his hands. “You don’t have to. But you’re welcome,” he says. He’s constantly reminding her of how much Foggy and Karen like her – even if they do just seem scared every time she tags along to Josie’s.

She bites her lip and shakes her head. “I’ve got cases,” she says, and it’s not quite a lie, but it probably isn’t enough to get past him. He raises a brow. She swallows hard and rolls her eyes. “Okay, fine. I don’t.” She pulls on her jacket, slips the bag over her shoulder. “But you’re not the only person with people to tell, ya know.”

For some reason, that makes him smile again. He walks over to her, telegraphing his intentions so clearly, she’s not the least bit surprised when he pulls her into a long kiss.

His hands start at her waist, but as they finally pull apart, her head swimming, she realizes that he’s moved them. One of them, anyway. She looks down, at his hand over her stomach, so massive compared to her slight frame. (Slight for _now_ anyway, Jesus. That was a… thing that would happen.)

She’s biting her lip again. “Can you hear it?” she asks, not lifting her gaze. She can’t look away from the sight of his hand on her. Can’t get over how she doesn’t _want_ to look away, how it doesn’t feel too heavy against her skin. His touch is feather-light, delicate almost, but _real_ at the same time. The exact opposite of her dream.

“A little,” he says, and when she does look up, his head is cocked to help him listen better. Which brings a stupid smile to her face, and he can tell. “Mostly, it’s just a _difference_ now. An anomaly, something not quite you. But a part of you, still – I just…” He trails off, in that way he has. She waits for him to collect himself. “It doesn’t feel _wrong_ in there,” he says finally.

Jessica pauses for a second, mulling over those words. Then she kisses him, just once, a quick, rough kiss, and steps back. “I know what you mean,” she says. And that, surprisingly, isn’t a lie at all.

* * *

 

When she gets to her apartment, she’s not even surprised to find the door open anymore. Irritation and panic still flicker through her, but she can already hear Malcolm in the kitchen.

“What have I told you about breaking into my apartment?” she calls out, slamming the door open.

To her amusement, Malcolm jumps – she can hear dishes clattering to the ground. And then his curly mess of hair pokes out into the office. “It’s not breaking in if I have a key,” he says, patting his pocket.

“You stole that key.”

“I _acquired_ it, when I fixed your door,” he reminds her, striding into the office, drying his hands on a dish towel she didn’t even know she had. (She probably didn’t, he must’ve brought it from his place. Since his recovery, it’s _her_ apartment that looks like a drug den.) “The words you’re looking for are _thank you_ , by the way.” He plops down on her futon, tossing the towel aside.

Jessica doesn’t even give that a response, because they’ve had this argument before. Instead she just walks over to her desk and lets her bag drop to the ground. Her new camera is a heavy-duty one, a little jab from Matt, but useful.

Her eyes flick to the kitchen, and she shakes her head when she sees the full dish-rack. “I’m not paying you to do my dishes, Malcolm.”

“Technically, you’re barely paying me at all,” he shoots back. She glares at him over her shoulder, but she’s smirking. It’d taken him months to wear her down, but for all intents and purposes, Alias Investigations has two employees now.

Three if you counted Trish, who sometimes threw cash to keep the lights on, or her weight to help Jessica get into high-class places. And four if you counted Matt, who accompanied her on stake-outs and listened to her bitch about lousy clients. (Five if you included the Devil, but Jessica patently refused to acknowledge that she worked/slept with a guy who wore a gimp suit to punch assholes.)

She looks at him, but she can’t figure out how to say what she came here to say. She’s quick with a sarcastic quip, quicker with an insult, but when it comes to something like this, something _real_ , the words get tangled up in her head. Stuck in her throat, which has tightened up considerably in the last few seconds.

Malcolm, not being Matt and not being able to hear every goddamn reaction her body has, doesn’t seem to notice. He’s toying around on his phone, searching for something intently. “So what are you doing here?” he asks. “I didn’t expect you back from your _boyfriend’s_ until later,” he says, smirking at her. It amuses him to no end to use that word. He apparently doesn’t care about the amount of times she’s threatened to dangle him out the window Michael Jackson Style – or he just knows that she never actually would.

She doesn’t have _friends_. She has a select few people that she occasionally gives a damn about, people who are less-than irritating. (Though Danny Rand plays goddamn jump rope with that line on a daily basis.) Even before she knew what had happened to Malcolm, her role in it all, he’d been one of those people. She’d been able to tell herself that she could get away with it, since he was too stoned to recognize her half the time, but now things were different. Now… now she owed Malcolm more than just making sure he got into his own apartment and didn’t get harassed on the street by pretentious biker assholes.

“Something came up,” she says, and he picks his head up from his phone.

He waits for her to explain, but she can’t find the words. She feels like she’s _choking_ on them, just a little, struggling between the urge to swallow them down or spit them out.

“Something came up here, too,” he says after a long moment of incredibly awkward silence. “Client came by. I took her contact info, said you’d get back to her when –”

“I’m pregnant.”

Finally. It’s out there. Jessica’s always flitted between extreme repression and heavily-guarded privacy, and just bluntly putting it out there. She can’t hide this forever though. Especially not from Malcolm, who has wormed his way completely into her life.

He looks like a cartoon character who got hit with a frying pan. Eyes wide, blinking rapidly, utterly frozen. But only for a second. Then a wide grin breaks out on his face, and she knows what’s about to happen right before he stands up.

“Don’t –” she starts, but he’s already hugging her.

Jessica could throw him across the room, through the walls. In half a second, he could be lying flat on his ass in his own apartment wondering how the hell got there. But she doesn’t. She sighs heavily, making no show to hide her irritation, and hugs him back with one arm.

“Congratulations,” he says, not letting her go. “Trish knows?”

Jessica rolls her eyes. “And Matt,” she says. “You’re not that special, Ducasse.”

He laughs at that, she can feel it rumble through her, because he still hasn’t let her go. She’s starting to regret this more and more by the second. Then, mercifully, the phone rings.

“Malcom,” she says pointedly. “Malcolm, I swear to god, if you don’t let me answer that, I’m going to tear your own arm off and beat you with it.”

He steps back, grin unfaltering in the face of her threat. “Allow me,” he says, and picks up the office phone. Most people wouldn’t bother with one, but Jessica’s not giving her cell number to clients and she does have a habit of forgetting to charge the damn thing anyway.

“Alias Investigations,” Malcolm says. His grin, somehow, grows even wider. “Matt!” he says, looking over at Jessica. “I just heard, congrat—”

Jessica plucks the phone from him, and pushes him aside. Not too hard, but hard enough. She’s heard that word enough times for one day. “Hi,” she says simply.

Matt’s laughing on the other end, and Malcolm can hear it, he starts laughing too as he walks back into the kitchen to finish the dishes. “Don’t encourage him,” she snaps. “I swear, he’s already planning the goddamn nursery.”

“Yep!” comes Malcolm’s reply. Jessica flips him off and turns her back on him.

Matt is waiting patiently on the other end. “It’s nice of him to be excited,” he says in a low voice, tinged with affection. He appreciates what Malcolm does for her, the ways he’s there for her when Matt can’t be. “We’ll just have to keep him and Karen out of the same room.” He chuckles lightly. “At least… until the excitement dies down a little.”

Jessica resists the urge to roll her eyes, rendered double useless at this point. “Pretty sure this is the kind of thing people get _more_ excited for as time goes on,” she points out, sitting down at her desk. “I take it breakfast went well?” she asks, fingers drumming along her desk.

He hums. “It did. Foggy looked almost ready to pass out, but he’s already demanding to be godfather. Since, quote-unquote, ‘Someone’s gotta take care of the kid after you two throw yourselves into something else monumentally stupid.’”

Her fingers still. He laughs again, but in that nervous way. When something’s hit a little too close to the truth for him. It hadn’t occurred to her. There was so much other _stupid shit_ to deal with, to think about, it was happening so fast – but now all she could think about was sitting by the police scanner. Listening as the cops dragged in Daredevil. Or worse. Hearing that very specific code come over the line. 10-45D. _Dead._ Hearing that, while she sat helplessly next to a crib.

 _No_. Her jaw clenched tight. She was never goddamn helpless, not anymore.

Matt clears his throat on the other end of the line. She’s been quiet for too long, her mind too good at jumping to the worst possible conclusions and running through every single one. “Did you call me for a reason, or did you just wanna bother me while I work?” she asks. She’s going to do this the way she does everything else. One goddamn day at a time. She’s never been good at plans anyway.

He chuckles again, less nervous this time. “I was thinking, actually…” he says, voice gentle. “There’s a few more people we need to tell. If you’re not busy, might be best to do them together. Get it all over and done with.”

She knows who he means, and she sighs, but can’t argue with him. “You call them,” she says. “We’ll meet at the Royal.” Danny was still paying their rent – the owner had asked for at least another year after the whole ‘car through the front window’ shit, but she wasn’t sorry. Still, they might as well put the place to use.

“Sounds like a plan,” Matt agrees. “Hour from now?”

“Perfect,” she says. She doesn’t bother to say goodbye, she just slams the phone back down and rubs her head. Christ, she wants a drink.

“Bring home some shrimp!” Malcolm yells from the kitchen. Jessica shakes her head. He eavesdrops now, too. Asshole.

* * *

 

She hates Chinese food. The smell of it, the way the taste lingers in the air, thick and heavy long after the meal is gone. But this place is different. She wouldn’t call their first meeting here a _pleasant_ memory, but the ones after… they don’t suck entirely.

It took all of two weeks after Matt re-entered the world, for the three of them to start doing _team-ups_. She mocked them relentlessly for it, but they just kept at it. Luke, formerly Hero of Harlem, had adopted a new stupid name. _Power-Man_. She was pretty sure the Bulletin started that one, but even Trish called him that now when she did her shows on the heroes of the city. Her sister though, was the one who started calling them The Defenders. _I needed to call you guys something!_ she’d said. _I can’t only talk about the Avengers when I do shows about the heroes of this city._

It’s another dumb name, but Jessica can’t complain. She’s not a part of it. She helped with Midland Circle, and then she was out. She made that clear to all three of them, and Danny was the only one who still called and begged her to come out ‘on patrol’ with him. It was there schtick, not hers. She didn’t pick at it too much, because one way or another, the three of them were going to be out there. At least this way, they had some back-up.

But every now and then, even though she’s just an ‘honorary’ Defender, they coaxed her to come out with them. Always to the Royal, because Danny was goddamn sentimental. (So was Matt, but he was less obvious about it.) She didn’t ever eat with them – she still couldn’t stomach the taste – but Danny had turned her onto Saki, and she always brought her flask, so it wasn’t a total loss. Sometimes, it even approached _normal_. As normal as a table with a blind ninja, a glowing fist, a bulletproof man, and a hella classy lady could be.

When she walks in tonight, everyone else is already there. Luke’s brought Claire, and Danny has Colleen at his side, no surprises there. Matt’s waiting for her, already looking at the door even before the chime goes off.

“Jess!” Danny says excitedly, perking up when he sees her.

“Don’t wet yourself, Danny,” Jessica replies. A fairly standard greeting between them. She pulls out her chair and sits down, slumping already. She’s not exactly thrilled about the conversation that’s coming – but she’s not exactly dreading it either.

She nods to Colleen, Claire, Luke. Luke smiles at her. “Long time no see, Jones,” he says, in that deep voice of his. The one that never fails to remind her about broken beds and cracks in the wall, that feeling of not having to hold back, letting go completely. Feelings like that don’t just vanish, even if she usually wishes they would. They’ve moved past it, both of them, but every now and then… she just remembers.

“Hasn’t been that long,” she shrugs, smirking back at him. Matt’s hand creeps over, takes hers. She smirks at him – his jealously would be annoying if he weren’t so obvious. (And if she weren’t a little bit jealous herself. She _isn’t_ blind, she knows how hot Claire is. It doesn’t take a PI to work out their history.)

Danny’s plate is half-empty, but he’s still stuffing dumplings into his face. “Mmph –” He swallows. “Matt says you’ve got something to tell us.”

Claire is picking at her own food lazily. “Please tell me it’s not something that’s going to make me lose my job,” she jokes, deep brown eyes sparkling in that way. “I _like_ this hospital guys. I wanna hold onto this one for more than a few months.”

She laughs, and it spreads across the table. Matt’s is tinged with guilt, and Jessica doesn’t laugh at all, but Danny and Colleen chuckle easily. Luke just presses a kiss to her forehead.

“Your job security is safe on this one, Claire,” Matt says, nodding to her. One of his hands is toying with his chopsticks, the other hasn’t let go of Jessica’s. Colleen and Claire both notice, they’re sharing a pointed look.

Jessica doesn’t usually let PDA, even little, seemingly insignificant things like this, last for very long. She has her reasons, and Matt respects them. They were never going to be a typical couple, she had a hard enough time accepting they were one at all. If it were up to her, she never would’ve even told the others they were sleeping together.

That one… that one got away from her.

* * *

 

 For a solid month, they kept it under wraps. Trish knew, but Trish knew everything. Beyond that, it wasn't hard. When they went out as a group, the four of them, Jessica just made sure to keep a body between her and Matt. She barely looked at him, and he only spoke to her when he absolutely had to. Danny figured she was still pissed about Matt’s self-sacrificing bullshit. Luke, who knew her a little more, had his money on the guilt she felt for leaving him behind.  

He’d actually cornered her, once. They’d been out drinking, at Josie’s, and when Matt and Danny went off to play pool (the bastard could shoot better blind than she could seeing), Luke had leaned over. “You have to let it go eventually, Jess,” he’d whispered. “He made his own choices. That’s not on you, and you got enough weight on your shoulders.”

She’d pretended that she was momentarily deaf, and just ordered another drink. That night, after the other two said goodbye, she’d pressed Matt against the wall of his apartment and used his body to chase away the resurgence of shame.  An old tactic of hers, one that always worked. For a little while.

Eventually, Danny and Luke, and whoever else went out with them, just accepted that Jessica wasn’t the forgiving type. For Matt or herself, no one was quite sure. Jessica let them keep thinking whatever they wanted, and every time they left, she chased away the dark thoughts in her head with his touch, his taste, his everything. It worked even better than liquor.

But the Bad Nights could only be kept at bay for so long.

A month into this strange _habit_ she’d formed with him, a Bad Night hit. When her nerves felt like a bundle of exposed wires under her skin, ready to electrocute anyone who got too close. When she was raw and ragged, torn apart by memories she couldn’t block out. She drained one bottle, then another. She couldn’t sit in her apartment, not when it felt like the walls were closing in. She had a third bottle in her hand, sipping it as she stumbled aimlessly through the streets.

But she wasn’t aimless. Not really. Even as she walked blindly, mind consumed by that one memory, her feet knew where they were taking her. She’d been like this only once before, the night of the bus crash. When his voice was still in her head and she could barely think, but her feet took her to Trish’s. The first thing she could do of her own free will, and she went to Trish.

Tonight, it was _that moment_ in her head. The memory of the elevator cable cutting into her hand as she struggled to hold on, the one way out of this hell dangling below her. The decision she had to make. _Her_ choice, not Matt’s.

And the memory of that choice took her straight to his rooftop.

She landed roughly, could never stick the landing. “Shit,” she muttered, realizing even this out of it, that it was too loud. That was confirmed a moment later, when the door opened just as she pulled herself to her feet.

“Jessica?” came Matt’s voice, and Jessica glared at him.

She stalked (stumbled) over to him, and had him pressed against the door in seconds. Her elbow at his throat and her lips pressed against his. He pushed back against her for a moment, then started pulling her closer, and she stopped, breaking away roughly.

“You’re an _idiot_ ,” she declared, words slurring only slightly. She tried to walk off, but the world was spinning dangerously around her. The only thing keeping her up was Matt’s hands on her waist.

“And you’re drunk,” Matt said. He was whispering, and she didn’t know why. “Very drunk, by the looks of it. Maybe I should call you a cab –” The look on her face let him know what she thought of _that_. “Or I could walk you home. Call Trish.”

“I don’t _want_ to call Trish,” she muttered, slapping his shoulders. If only so it wasn’t obvious that what she really wanted to do was hold onto them. “You asshole. You idiotic, stupid –”

“Okay,” he said, one hand reaching up to touch her face. “Okay, Jess. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“This time,” she muttered darkly. She glared at him, hated him for pulling her in a thousand direction at once. Part of her wanted to hit him, push him until he finally broke, until he accepted what she’d done – and another part just wanted to kiss him again.

His face fell, and the self-loathing reared to life in her mind. _Good_ , she thought. That was how it should be. This thing with Matt was too good, too much, and she _wanted_ it too much. The problem was, he wanted it, too.

And she was strong, but she wasn’t strong enough to fight this. She pulled him towards her, off the door and kissed him again. Or maybe he kissed her, she was too drunk to tell, _way_ beyond caring. She just wanted to drink up this feeling, fill up the hollowed spaces carved by shame and guilt and pain with something, _anything_.

“Jess…” he murmured, his lips still pressed against hers. “Jess. Jess, _wait_.”

“ _What_?!” she snapped finally. She pulled away, and threw her arms out wide. “What? I _want you_ , okay? I want this, I – I need it.” She took a deep, heaving breath. “I need you.”

He was smiling, looking like Christmas came early. “And I’m completely okay with that. Feel the same way most days,” he quipped softly. “But uh…” He reached behind him, and pulled the door open.

Danny and Luke were standing there. Danny’s eyes were wide, and Luke had that _knowing_ smirk on his face. Matt was flushing a little, but also looked a little pleased with himself.

Jessica scrubbed a hand over her face. “Well… shit.”

* * *

 

“That’s it? Isn’t it!”

Danny’s triumphant yell pulls her back to the present. He's staring at her expectantly, that gleeful glint in his eyes. “Well?” he presses.

She just blinks at him. “Danny… I was _not_ listening,” she deadpanns. The table laughs again as Danny slumps onto the table.

Claire leans forward now. “Danny and Luke have been trying to guess what the big news is,” she explains patiently. She's the most goddamn patient of all of them. That must’ve been why she and Luke mesh so well. “So far, we’ve got: Matt’s got a new costume, without ears –”

“They’re _horns_ ,” Matt mutters. Even Jessica snickers at that.

Colleen rolls her eyes, and continues. “Luke guessed that Matt might be expanding his practice. Which seems _dull,_ no offense, so I hope that’s not it.”

“Or!” Danny interjects. He points a dumpling-covered chopstick at Jessica. “You’re joining back up with us! For real!” He pops the dumpling into his mouth and thankfully swallows before speaking again. “Well? That’s gotta be it, right?”

Jessica shakes her head. “In your dreams, Iron Clad.”

Danny pouts, slumping down in his chair. Colleen ruffles his hair, and Luke tosses a napkin at him. “I told you,” he says. “You’ll never get her to join back up if you keep pushing it.” His eyes meet hers for a minute. “It’s gotta be her choice.”

She smiles at him, dropping her gaze down to the table as she shakes her head again. “You all can play superfreak all you want, I’m done with that shit,” she says, leaning back.

Luke shrugs. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Can too,” all three ladies respond instantly. More laughter.

Finally, Claire holds up her hands. “All right. Guessing game’s over. It’s getting late, and I have got an early shift tomorrow.” She looks at Matt, then at Jessica. “So, you two – spill the beans already.”

Matt squeezes her hand, and Jessica looks at him. “Think we’ve kept them in suspense long enough?”

She pretends to think about it, squeezing his hand back, gently. (She always has to be gentle, has to remind herself. Christ, what is she going to do with a _baby_?) Jessica refocuses on the conversation at hand. “Not even close. But I’m tired too.” He goes to open his mouth, but she cuts him off.  

“If I’ve gotta carry the thing for nine months,” she starts, only then looking out to the rest of the table. “I’m gonna tell ‘em.” Claire’s mouth has fallen open. Danny looks a little confused. “I’m warning you,” she says pointedly. “I’ve already been hugged once today, so the first person who comes at me with that shit is gonna be eating Chinese out of a straw. But… yeah,” she says, nodding. “I’m… pregnant. Surprise.”

Danny practically leaps out of his seat, pumping his fist in the air, making everyone laugh again. They all stand up then, hugging Matt in lieu of her, which she appreciates. Let him deal with this shit, she’s had enough. If she hears  _congratulations_ one more time, she's was going to explode.

She hangs back a little, nodding, but not saying anything. Matt is answering a few questions from everyone (mostly Danny), and there is a lot of noise. The good kind of noise, almost enough to rival what's usually in her head.

A heavy hand falls on her shoulder, a familiar one. She looks up at Luke, who's smiling down at her. “Good for you, Jones,” he says.

“Thanks,” she murmurs. “I didn’t really do much.”

“Not yet,” he says, smirking. “But you will.” He pauses a moment, pulls his hand back. “You know if you ever need anything…”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure Danny’s already planning on buying out every Babies ‘R Us in a ten mile radius,” she says, nodding to the ninja who's practically buzzing out of his skin.

“You’re right. But I mean it,” Luke insists. “Just gotta ask, Jones.”

She bites her lip for a second, watching the scene in front of them. Her… shit, there isn’t really a word for them besides friends, is there? Goddammit. She's in deep now. Really in this, all of it. Jesus, it makes her want a drink.

“Actually,” she says suddenly. “There is… something.”


	4. AKA Detox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Claire Temple nurses Jessica through detox, and Matt through his moral quandaries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one took a lot longer than the other chapters, but I had medical nonsense to doublecheck.
> 
> Disclaimer: Please don't try this at home. When I asked my EMT sister about detoxing at home without specifying that it was for a character, she called me in a panic and said "TAKE YOUR FRIEND TO A HOSPITAL." 
> 
> Medical stuff is still vague, because this shit is complicated, and lbr, y'all are here for the JessMatt.
> 
> ALSO. I HIT 1K VIEWS ON THIS, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

Matt hears Claire’s arrival even before she steps out of the elevator.

“It’s just her,” he says to Jessica. Jessica, who is currently vomiting for the fourth time since last night. The bathroom is _not_ going to be a pleasant place to be. He’s on the floor with her, holding her hair back. She’d tried fighting him on it, telling him to _fuck off_ , but he knew that was more for his benefit than her own. And he’d deal with the overpowering smell. It was the least he could do.

Jessica coughs, spits once more, then sits back. Matt lets go of her immediately, but his hand falls to her knee. “Good,” she mutters. “Christ, I hope she brought something to make this stop.” She’s wiping at her lips, fingers trembling. All of her is trembling, really. He imagines that’s partially from throwing up, and partially from the fact that her last drink was three days ago.

She’d told him about her request to Luke. About her plan. Matt didn’t like it, he preferred other alternatives, but there was very little in this world that he could fight Jessica on and win. It was _her_ body going through this, and her call how she wanted to handle it.

Detox.

* * *

 

Matt opens the door on the second knock, and Claire’s grinning at him. “Why do I bother?” she sighs. He just smiles and steps back, so she can come inside. Claire pauses in the hallway, lowering her voice as she turns back to him. “How is she?”

He can hear the concern and knows how genuine it is even without his senses. “She’s…” There’s a groan from the other room, which makes him cringe. “Been better.”

“I’ll bet,” Claire says, sighing heavily. She’s got a bag with her, he can smell chemical traces and hear pills rattling around, and that gives him some measure of comfort. There’s an IV in there, too. “Let’s get this started,” she says, walking into his living room.

Matt follows her. Jessica is sprawled on the couch, tank top askew, hair sticking to her forehead. He’d managed to coax her into one of his pajama bottoms instead of her jeans at least, but she’s a long way from comfortable.

“Good morning, Miss Jones,” Claire says brightly, undeterred by the look of death he’s sure Jessica is giving her. “I’ll be your nurse today. How we doing?”

“Fuck you.” Claire laughs at that, like only she can. Matt hears the snap of latex and can smell the dust flitting into the air. A welcome change from the heavy stench of sweat and vomit that’s been permeating it for the past few days. But the clinical feel of it all, even here, makes Jessica’s pulse jump.

He moves behind the couch, leaning over it to stroke her forehead. She slaps his hand away, but her fingers curl around his. His hand is cooler than her skin, he knows that, and she presses it to her burning eyes.

“Arm,” Claire instructs, and Jessica reluctantly sticks out her left. She inhales sharply as the needle goes in easily. Claire’s good at her job, that’s half the reason they asked her to do this. “At least we’re not dealing with bulletproof skin this time, yeah?” she says. Maybe she can sense Jessica’s discomfort too, because her tone is overly casual, more sarcastic than she’d be with another patient. (Though only slightly – her bedside manner comes with a healthy dose of ‘you fucked up,’ that Matt’s acutely familiar with.)

Matt leans on the couch, letting it support his weight as Jessica keeps his hand pressed to her skin, moving it when she wants somewhere else cooled. Claire is checking her pulse, pulling more objects from her bag. There’s the sound of Velcro and a pump as a blood pressure cuff is slipped over his girlfriend’s arm.

He counts with Claire, listening to the seconds tick by on his watch, but he has no other frame of reference. Other than his own intuition from listening to the way Jessica’s pulse has climbed and dropped for the past few hours, he doesn’t have any idea how she’s really doing. Claire tuts, but doesn’t seem overly displeased by what she’s reading.

“You do know,” she says, pulling out pill bottles now. “That there are clinics for this kind of thing. Nurses who don’t have to take an extended vacation to do this,” she says pointedly.

Jessica murmurs something that not even Matt can decipher, so he jumps in. “We’re not looking for that kind of attention,” he says. Claire rolls her eyes (a sound he usually tries to block out, someone’s eyes rolling in their skull, but he’s a tad distracted at the moment). “And we’ll find a way to thank you, Claire. I promise.”

The nurse tuts again, shaking her head as she measures out some doses, spilling two pills into her hand.  Matt stands up and grabs a glass of water from his kitchen. “If I did this job for the thanks, I would’ve quit a long time ago,” she says. “Take these,” she says to Jessica, taking the water from Matt and passing it to her patient.

“Will they kill me?” Jessica asks, voice miserable and sarcasm thick.

Claire shakes her head. “Sorry, Jones. If you die here, I’m gonna have a hell of a time explaining that to the cops. I might just have to sell out your boyfriend here.”

Jessica grumbles, and swallows down the pills, gulping down the water like it’s whiskey. “I hate that word,” she mutters, holding the glass up. Matt takes it, and she rolls over, burying herself into his couch cushions.

“Oh, trust me,” Claire says, checking the IV bag, settling it on the coffee table. “You’re gonna hate a lot of shit by the time we’re done here.”

“Way ahead of you.”

“Go to sleep, Jones.”

Claire Temple is the only person in the world who can give Jessica a command, and it works. Maybe it’s the meds, but in only a few moments, Matt can hear her breathing slow as Jessica drifts off.

* * *

 

It’s not a comfortable sleep. Matt knows, he’s spent enough nights next to her. Woken her up from more than a few nightmares. There was the time she socked him in the jaw before she really came to her senses – that was fun. At least he couldn’t blame the Devil for that one.

“It’s a waiting game at this point,” Claire says from behind him. Matt turns around to face her. She’s holding the coffee he made for her, hands wrapped around the mug. Her tone is practiced, careful, but he can hear the worry thrumming through her. She doesn’t like this anymore than he does.

He sighs, and takes a seat at his table. Jessica is tossing a little on the couch, but Claire’s told him one of those pills should keep her under for a while, and given him strict orders not to mess with her rest. Even if it doesn’t sound restful.

“I’m sorry, Claire,” he says, when he hears her sit down beside him. “And thank you. I know this isn’t how you wanted to spend your vacation days.”

Claire’s chair creaks as she sits back. “Eh, it’s not so bad. When your boyfriend’s best friend is a billionaire, vacations are easy to come by. He’s sending us to the Bahamas for Christmas,” she jokes. At least, Matt thinks she’s joking, but with Danny, you can never be sure.

“Please tell me that’s not a whole Defenders trip he’s planning,” he says, chuckling lightly. His nervous laugh, the one Jessica is so quick to pick up on. She’s not the only one.

Claire just shrugs. Her mug clinks as she sets it down on the table. “You wanna talk about it?” she asks quietly.

“Talk about what?” he asks, the feigned ignorance instant. On the couch, Jessica lets out a small whimper, something pained, and his head snaps over. He listens intently, but the moment passes. Whatever discomfort was there is washed away by the myriad of pain pills in her system.

“Where to begin?” Claire says, drawing his attention back to her. She’s looking at him now. He doesn’t know the color of her eyes, but he knows this look so well. The probing, intuitive look that Claire Temple is so adept at. “You’re having a baby. Your girlfriend is finally facing up to her alcoholism, and you… Are still going out every night dressed up like a Devil.”

Matt’s mouth falls open, but he doesn’t know what to say. He toys with the glasses on his face, completely unnecessary in the present company, but a habit he doesn’t want to fall out of for when he needs it. “I’ve been… trying to convince her to slow down,” he says finally. “For a while now. We talk about it, but I can’t…”

A breathy sigh from Claire. “Can’t make Jessica do anything she doesn’t want to,” she says knowingly. Her hand rests on top of his, squeezing gently, so unlike Jessica’s touch. “Out with it, Murdock,” she says, but her tone is so gentle. “I can sense that Catholic guilt just festering inside you. Gotta let it out sometime, and trust me,” she says, the corners of her lips curling into a smirk. “You do not wanna let it out on a pregnant woman.”

Matt manages a half-laugh at that. But it falls short of anything genuine, choked off by something he hasn’t let himself feel in years. The papers still sometimes call him _The Man Without Fear_. It isn’t entirely true, especially without the mask on. But fear slows him down. Muddles things. And now, more than ever, he needs to see clearly.

Metaphorically speaking, anyway. But he can’t shake the fear.

“My dad,” he says finally. The words are too careful to really be casual, too measured to come off as unimportant. Claire knows him far too well regardless. “He was a boxer. Got mixed up with some bad people.” It’s like he’s presenting a case. Simple. Unemotional. Matter of fact. But he can’t help but remember how Jessica told the story, over a year ago now. The first time she admitted they were _friends_ , that they could trust each other.

God, he’s scared.

He clears his throat. There’s a thousand sounds around him. Clarie’s fingers gripping her mug, the coffee swishing inside. The panting breaths from Jessica, the beads of sweat dripping down her skin. The wind outside, whistling as it slips through the cracks in the bricks. The cars. Millions of conversations taking place on the street below. Strangers fingers tapping on cellphones. Heartbeats, so many heartbeats. And the sirens.

There’s always sirens.

“He used to throw fights, to line mobsters’ pockets,” he says quietly. “I used to stitch him up afterwards. Needle shaking in my hand.” There’s a strange half-smile on his face, but there’s no light in it. When the Murdock boys open up, there’s nothing but the devil inside. “And he – he stopped eventually. But getting out of that life…” His voice is stilted now, finding each word is a struggle. “That’s what killed him.”

Claire sighs, that all-too-knowing sigh. “And you think that’s what would happen?” she asks, her voice soft and melodic, always more like a lullaby than she ever realizes. “If you were to stop being Daredevil?”

It sounds strange, insignificant now that it’s been spoken aloud. He shrugs, fingers tapping against his own coffee mug. “I don’t know if I can live without it again. Without – being him,” he says. Because the Devil and Matt Murdock are two separate people, inhabiting the same vessel. But Matt Murdock is the one wearing a mask, the one who lies, the one who isn’t real. Daredevil is honest, brutally honest. Leaving behind that honesty almost killed him. (Embracing it again almost killed him, too. There’s no bad luck quite like Murdock luck.)

Claire is quiet, taking measure of him. Maybe her eyes are looking him up and down. Maybe they’re staring right at his. “Can you live with being a father exactly like your own?” she asks him. There’s no pity in her voice, but no judgement either. It’s straight-forward, their meaning up to him to decide. “Coming home bruised and bloody. Asking _your_ kid to stitch you up?”

“Well,” Matt says quietly. “I have you to stitch me up.”

She tries to scoff, but it becomes a laugh. She stands up then, crosses over to Jessica. Checking her pulse, though she must know she could’ve just asked. “I won’t be around forever, you know,” she says pointedly. Her eyes are on him again. “And you know what I was really asking, Matt.”

He swallows hard. For a long moment, says nothing. Then he nods, almost imperceptibly. “Yeah, yeah I know,” he answers finally.

She’s pushing something into the IV line. Something that makes Jessica’s body shudder for a second, and then relax again. Matt’s head is tilted towards the sounds of Claire’s nails against the syringe, the smell of the plastic lines, the taste of chemicals in the air. It’s strangely peaceful, the ritual of it all. At least the problem in front of them is tangible. It can be faced without fear.

He’s not so sure the problem of _fatherhood_ can be faced the same way.

* * *

 

Claire sleeps on his bed for the next week. Jessica refuses to move from the couch anyway, and Matt ends up passing out in the armchair, which gives him a hell of a crick in his neck. But it’s nothing compared to what Jessica goes through.

She spends the first three days almost completely under, thanks to Claire’s steady supply of medicine. He doesn’t ask what exactly it is, afraid to know the specifics. (Some Man Without Fear he is now.) But when she does wake, she’s covered in a cold sweat. Her hands are clammy. She throws up almost everything they coax into her stomach. (He coaxes. Claire is far more insistent.) Her heartrate climbs and plummets, but Claire is always right there, even in the middle of the night, even before Matt can alert her to the problem.

After about a week, the hallucinations start. Jessica wakes them both one night, screaming about the hands coming out of the wall. “They’re purple. They’re _his_ ,” she gasps, seemingly unaware of their presence. Claire and Matt share a look. They know exactly who she means.

It takes twenty minutes to talk her down. In the end, Matt has to distract her, has to physically hold her face to make her look at him. Even in this state, she’s stronger than he is, but she’s so shaken she doesn’t fight him. “I’ve got you, Jessica. It’s me, it’s Matt,” he’s saying, while Claire prepares the sedative. “Just breathe,” he tells her, but even he can tell she’s not looking at him. He wonders if her eyes are wild and darting around the room, staring at things that simply aren’t there. Her heartrate sounds like a rabbit’s, like a prey staring down a predator. “Main Street,” Matt says to her. “Say it with me, Jess. Main Street. Birch Street.”

“H—Higgins Drive,” she whispers, gasping for air. “Cobalt – Cobalt Lane.”

“Good,” he says. “Again, come on.” Claire has the syringe at the ready, he can hear her murmuring that she’s ready.

“Main Street,” they murmur together. “Birch Street. Higgins…”

Claire sticks the needle in the IV and pushes down the plunger. Jessica grows quiet. He can feel her go slack in his hands. “Drive,” Matt finishes, letting out a small breath. “Cobalt Lane.” He lays Jessica back, guides her until she’s curled up on the couch again. And even though she’ll hate it later, he takes the time to pull the blankets around her shoulders.

Behind him, Claire’s own heartrate is slowing too. She puts on a good show, never lets it show on her face he’s sure, but she’s too deeply invested here to be wholly professional. And he’s grateful.

“What is that?” she asks, pulling off her gloves. She stoops over, gathers up the syringe and drops it into a grocery bag, tying it tight. She’s following medical waste procedure as best she can. “That… mantra.”

Matt bites his lip, unsure how to answer. It feels deeply personal, but Claire isn’t a stranger. Jessica trusts her enough to do this, after all. “A coping mechanism,” he says after a moment, standing up. He crosses back to the armchair, collapses down into it. “A proven method for managing PTSD.”

Claire’s heartbeat is settling now. She’s dealt with worse calls than this, of course. “I didn’t pay enough attention during my psych rotation,” she quips quietly. She’s sitting on the arm of the couch, her eyes trained on Jessica if he had to guess. “Does it work?”

He shrugs. “Sometimes,” he murmurs. “Sometimes it doesn’t.”

She’s nodding, he can tell. He knows the silhouette of her by heart now, can read her movements as easily as Foggy’s or Jessica’s or Karen’s. “Thank god it did this time,” she says, and that draws a smile to his face. “What?” she asks, glancing at him.

Matt lets out a small, breathless laugh. “Just… been a while since I heard someone say that and mean it,” he says, smiling still.

Claire shrugs, standing up. She stretches her arms out, rolling her neck back. “I might not be as devout as you, Saint Matthew,” she says, the hint of a tease in her voice. Even though that nickname calls to mind less-than-pleasant memories. “But you don’t work in the ER without believing just a little bit. Seen my fair share of miracles,” she says, returning his small smile. They’re both so tired, he can practically smell the exhaustion in the air. “Not the least of which is you four,” she says. “And Colleen, Misty – they’re miracles in and of themselves.”

His laugh is a little stronger this time. “Couldn’t agree more,” he says, rubbing his own neck. It aches from consecutive nights on the couch. But at least the twinge distracts him from the sound of distant sirens. He can’t go out, not while his pregnant girlfriend detoxes on his couch. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out on the streets he could help. He knows Danny and Luke are patrolling the neighborhood, but he can’t shake the itch.

What is he going to do when there’s a baby in the picture? Leave Jessica by herself? Come back and ask her to stitch him up, when she won’t be able to take a swig of scotch to steady her hands?

A small sigh pulls him out of his thoughts. He cocks his head at Claire questioningly. His confusion only grows when she walks towards him, circling behind the armchair. “Hold still,” she says, and then her hands are on his neck.

They’re _warm_ and soft, not without their callouses and roughness, but her fingers work deftly at the tense muscles. “I didn’t know this fell within your skill set,” he says, letting out a deep breath as she works a particularly rough knot.

“Girl’s gotta keep a few things in her back pocket,” is Claire’s reply. He can hear the smirk without even searching for it. “You gonna give up the chivalry and take your bed back, Murdock?”

“Not a chance,” he says, tilting his head forward to give her more room to work. “What kind of saint would that make me?” he jokes. He’s as far from a saint as you can get. No amount of confession will change that.

She clicks her teeth behind him, but her fingers never stop moving in slow circles. “Masochist,” she shoots back. “You two are going to be the death of each other,” she says. And her hands slow for a moment as she looks, presumably, over at Jessica.

He turns his head in the same direction. Listens. Jessica’s breathing is steady now, her heartbeat strong. And the baby – nothing more than a few cells right now, but it has a heartbeat, too. Little. Fluttery. But constant, so _present_. So alive.

“Hopefully not,” he murmurs. And there must be something in his tone now, because Claire stops. Her hands move to his shoulders, resting there.

The not-quite silence sits for a moment. “I’ll say this for you guys,” she says finally. “You fight like hell for each other.”

“Hell is kind of my specialty.”

She smacks his shoulder for that one, but it’s worth it. The small smiles have returned. “I’m going to sleep in that bed you won’t use,” she says, yawning as she crosses the room. She pauses in the doorway. “Try the floor at least. Half as comfortable, but at least your neck will be straight.”

“Thanks, Claire,” he says, and they both know it’s not just for that bit of wisdom. She taps the doorframe, and disappears into his room. It’s strange to think that once upon a time, he’d thought about slipping into his bed with her. How far they’ve come since those moments.

He does lay out on the floor, pulling a cushion down to the ground with him. At least he has his bed socks on, the thick ones. His neck does feel a little better now. Straighter, like she said.

Now if only he could get his head on straight, too.

* * *

 

It takes two weeks. Two weeks of pain and agony, suffering and sweat, sleepless nights and sedatives. By the end of it, it feels like they’ve been through a tougher war than any in Stick’s prophecies.

Jessica is shaky, like a newborn deer on her feet, but she can stand as they walk Claire out. And that’s a marked improvement from where they started. Matt keeps a hand lightly around her waist, just in case.

“This isn’t the end,” Claire is saying. She left a few pill bottles behind, for emergencies and with strict instructions. “You’re clean, but the real shit – that’s just starting, Jones.”

Jessica shrugs, but Matt can hear her heartbeat fluttering. “I’ll be fine,” she says, and maybe it’s his imagination, but she moves a hand, ghosting it across her stomach, finding his hand on the other side of her waist.

Claire isn’t fooled either. “I’m serious,” she says, a hint of warning in her voice. “You _call_ me if you need, got it? Any time, anywhere. You call me.”

Again, she proves to be the only one who can give anything close to a command to Jessica. Because his girlfriend just nods. “I’ve got your number,” she says, flippantly. But there’s a quiet moment, where the two of them must be having a silent conversation. It’s moments like this where Matt actually misses his sight.

“Take care of yourself,” Claire says after a moment. “Both of you,” she adds. Now he’s sure she’s giving _him_ the stern look, but then she waves and steps outside, closing the door behind her.

The air feels different. Cleaner, somehow. The smell of latex gloves and sweat is still thick in the air, and Jessica pulls away from him, shuffling back towards the kitchen.

Matt gives her a moment, then follows. Spurred on by the sound of cupboards opening and closing, the click as his stove lights. “Cooking?” he asks, raising a brow. He stands on the other side of the island. She’s spent two weeks clinging to him, and clearly needs her space at the moment.

“Danny still has those groceries delivered,” comes Jessica’s answer. “And I’m hungry, so…” She trails off, slapping bacon down onto a frying pan. Instantly, the air is filled with _that_ smell, and Matt realizes with a shock that he’s hungry, too.

He sits down at the table, leaving her to it. “Guess I should thank him,” he says, practically salivating already. He hopes his hunger isn’t as apparent to her as hers is to him.

Jessica scoffs. “The day I thank Danny Rand is the day I put on a costume,” she says. He smirks at her predictable reply, glad to hear the old sarcasm in her voice. She might be sober, but she’s still the Jessica he knows.

They don’t speak again while she finishes up. He can hear every move she makes, smell the eggs she cracks into the pan alongside the bacon. Her technique is sloppy, clumsy, but the smell is enticing all the same.

She sets a plate in front of him, silverware clattering down after as she takes her own seat. They dig in, and for a second, the only sounds he can really focus on is chewing and swallowing. She finishes before he does, leaning back and sighing happily. He’s not sure he’s ever heard a happy sigh from her lips before. (At least one that didn’t involve them both naked between silk sheets.)

“Probably shouldn’t eat that fast,” he says carefully, though he can’t talk either. He’s swallowing down the hastily made breakfast like its his last meal.

“Screw you,” Jessica says, but there’s no bite to her tone. She’s smiling, he can feel it in his bones. And this time, he’s sure that sound is her actually touching her stomach. Rubbing softly in slow circles. “I guess I was hungrier than I thought,” she says quietly. A long pause, he almost breaks it to tell her that’s understandable, given what she’s been through. But she beats him to it. “We both were.”

She doesn’t mean him. It’s the first time she’s said _we._ The first time she’s talked about the baby like it’s real. Like it's a person.

He knows she’s exhausted, that she’s more worn out than he feels, but he can’t help himself. He leans across the table and pulls her close, one hand in her hair as he presses his lips to hers.

She doesn’t protest, doesn’t push him away. She kisses him back just as needily. They’re hungry in a thousand different ways.

Maybe that’s what spurs him on.

He’s still kissing her when he speaks. “I love you, Jessica Jones,” he murmurs against her lips.

She tenses up only for a second before she sighs happily again.

 

 

 

 

 


	5. AKA I'm Proud of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jessica falls prey to old doubts, and relives old memories with the person she loves most in the world. (Sorry Matt, it ain't you. You're a close second though.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here there be some Kilgrave mentions. Specifically, Jessica's first night away from him, and all that entails. Please be wary of your own mental health, I know these things can be difficult for some people to read. 
> 
> Also, that's a real painting/artist, who's super cool. 
> 
> In happier news, HOLY CRAP THIS HAS SO MANY HITS. You guys are awesome, and I hope this fic keeps entertaining you all. Someday, I'll get to that stuff in the original summary, I swear. I wanna keep hearing from you all! What do you like, what do you hate, what do you wanna see next?

_I love you, Jessica Jones._

The words ring through her head. For once, it's an echo she doesn't really mind. But she can't shake the strange feeling they've left behind, like a residue on her skin. It makes her feel slimy. But there's a part of her that feels warmed from the inside out and - Jesus. Love is just two idiots conning each other. Her job has taught her that, hell, her  _life_ has taught her that. 

She'd kill for a drink about now. But then again, drinking for two doesn't exactly have a nice ring to it. 

Matt goes about life the next few days like nothing has happened. He leaves for his day job in the morning, leaves in an entirely different suit for his night job in the evening. The sun goes down, and he's out there. Probably with Luke and Danny some of the time, but just as often on his own. She stays behind. Just because she has superstrength doesn't mean she's gonna use to knock muggers and drug dealers on their ass. Even if it would be satisfying - it's not her fight.

What  _is_ her fight? Right now, it seems like the only thing she has to fight against is herself. The restless feeling in her veins, the slime on her skin, the warmth in her chest that doesn't  _deserve_ to be there. It fills the hollow places inside her, but Matt's words still find a way to echo. Over and over.  _I love you, Jessica Jones_. And she didn't say anything back. 

She knows what she needs right now. (Knows what she wants, too, but again - drinking for two.) God, the next nine months are going to  _suck_. 

* * *

 

Trish has her 'disapproving' look when Jessica knocks on the balcony window. 

"I have a door, Jess," she says. But she doesn't make her wait behind the glass, just opens the door and steps back to let her in. 

Jessica shrugged. "This was faster. And your doorman's an asshole." She strides inside, hesitates a moment. Normally, she'd be over in Trish's kitchen, reaching into the 'Jessica Cupboard' as they call it. The place where Trish keeps all the shit she doesn't indulge in, but handy, for nights like this. She looks over at that cupboard, feelings the craving coil up in her chest, her stomach, her bones. Then she takes a breath, and collapses down onto the couch.

Trish takes the other sofa, drawing her knees up under her, wrapping a blanket that even Matt would think is soft around herself. "Should you be doing that? In your -"

"If you say 'condition,' I will throw up on you," Jessica cuts in. She scrubs a hand over her face, leaning forward. Legs spread wide, elbows resting on her knees. She tries to take up as much space as she can, sometimes just to remind herself that she  _can_. That the choice is still hers. Eight months of sitting up straight, meek and docile across from him in crowded restaurants, no one noticing the glazed look in her eye... 

No, she's not going there tonight. There's enough shit in the present to deal with. 

When she looks up, Trish is just watching her. With that steady gaze, mouth pulled into a tight line. "I'm just saying," she says when she catches Jessica's eye. "That you might want to think about being a little more careful. With yourself, all things considered." When Jessica doesn't say anything, doesn't even move except to tap her finger against her leg, Trish continues. "You answering your phone again? It's been a while."

"Two weeks," Jessica replies. "Give or take." She pauses, biting her lip, gaze falling to the floor. "You talk to Claire?"

"I talked to Malcolm," Trish says. She sits back, blonde hair spilling over her shoulder. "You're sober," she points out, her voice soft, gentle. 

She can't stand that tone with most people. Things that are too soft rub her the wrong way, grit and dirt feel more real, more like her own decision. But with Trish, it's different. It's always different. "Didn't really have a choice there," Jessica says, eyes still fixed on the floor. She traces the wood paneling with her eyes, back and forth, like she used to do with the cracks in her shrink's office. 

Trish lets out a small sound. Almost like an  _ahh_ , but breathier, her tongue clicking lightly against her teeth. She shifts to the other end of the couch, closer to Jessica, and leans forward. "Yeah, Jess," she says. "You did. You just made the  _right_ choice."

Jessica scoffs. "Yeah, for once in my life," she mutters. "Everyone gets lucky sometimes."

"That is not true," Trish says immediately. "It wasn't luck, Jess. It was you. You decided to get sober, just like I did."

Jessica looks up at her now, heart in her throat. There's a lot they don't talk about, not unless one of them is very drunk or very melancholy. Ms. Walker. Kilgrave. Reva. And Trish's previous pill-popping habit is usually top of that list, but tonight, without any kind of liquid courage on either end, Trish opens that door. 

"That was different," Jessica says, shuffling in her seat. She doesn't feel comfortable, hasn't in a few days. That slimy feeling is back, the same sort of feeling she used to get when people called her office looking for a  _hero_. She eventually had to change her answering machine to say  _Not a goddamn hero. Don't call me._ It worked, kind of. "You and me, we're different people, Trish."

Her sister laughs lightly. "You just now realizing that? Here I thought we could be twins," she says. She leans forward more, her hands twitching like she wants to reach out, but she won't. She's so careful of Jessica now. Growing up, they laid on each other's stomachs and fell asleep on each other in the back of the car, held hands when Ms. Walker was screaming in the next room over. But not anymore. It's one more thing he took from her - even innocent touches hurt, burn her. Like her skin is made of matches, and the smallest amount of friction lets off a spark.

"Jess." She looks up. Trish wants her to look up, wants to look her in the eyes, because this is a 'serious' moment to her. Because she wants Jessica to listen. Anyone else would get an eye roll, a glare, a sarcastic, biting comment. But not Trish. "I'm proud of you."

Jessica's breath catches, snags around her rib cage. The echo of Matt's words fade to the background of her mind, replaced by those four instead. And then, the memory of the last time Trish said comes crawling back. It's not like a flashback, doesn't flicker before her eyes, but it does swallow her down whole.

* * *

 

She ran from the bus crash, and on instinct, wound up outside Trish's door. Outside the apartment that had been her  _home_ eight months ago. But that was never about the place, or about the shit she had stored there. It was all about Trish. 

It was late, Trish was wrapped up in her robe, bleary-eyed when she opened the door. "Jessica?" she asked, her tone a little cold. No wonder, when Jessica hadn't talked to her in almost a year. But then her eyes flicked down, saw the blood on Jessica's knuckles, her forehead, in her hair. "Holy shit," she breathed. "Come here."

Jessica let herself be pulled inside. She was cold, so cold, she'd thrown off the fur jacket two blocks back. Or was it four? She couldn't remember. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but shiver, teeth chattering in her skull, making her head pound furiously. 

"Jessica." Trish's voice sounded distant, far away. Like she was underwater, maybe that's why she couldn't breathe. "Jessica, what happened? Just breathe, Jess. Come here, sit down."

 _Just breathe. Come here. Sit down._ Three commands in two sentences. Jessica stopped dead in her tracks, pulled herself out of Trish's arms. " _No_ ," she said firmly. "No, no - I can't. I  _won't_."

"Okay." Trish's response was immediate, and so completely unlike what she was used to. Jessica was waiting to hear the commands again, stronger, louder, more firm this time. The compliance didn't... didn't make sense, didn't register. What was she supposed to do with that? 

Trish held her hands up, like she was surrendering. "Okay, Jess," she said again, like it would be less confusing this time around. "Do you want me to call someone? A doctor? Or your boyfri-"

"He's not," Jessica gasped out. She tried to inhale, but there wasn't enough oxygen. "He's  _not_ , Trish. God, he's..." She clamped her lips shut, shaking her head. It hurt, but there was no  _fog_ there anymore. No hazy window between her and the rest of the world. It was  _clear_ , so heartbreakingly clear, and she could feel tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. She squeezed them shut tightly, but instantly opened them again. Looking at the world like this, without that fog, without  _him_ in her head... It was like looking into the sun. Painful, but oh so beautiful. 

Trish's face clouded over, and even that looked beautiful. She furrowed her brow, frowned deeply. "Jessica," she said softly. She stared at her a moment longer. "I'm going to make you tea," she announced. She walked over to her kitchen - what used to be  _their_ kitchen - and moved the kettle to the front burner. 

Jessica nodded vaguely. Her eyes swept over the apartment. It looked almost exactly the same. Cleaner, maybe, without her around to screw up Trish's aesthetic. If not for the blood on her knuckles, the pounding in her head, the too-tight dress clinging to her body, Jessica might've thought she'd stepped back in time.

God,  _if only_. 

She took a hesitant step forward. Mouth falling open, but no sound coming out. She looked over at Trish, who was pulling out mugs, laying tea bags in them, eyes flicking between the kettle and Jessica. Jessica stared back, but couldn't say anything. Every word was caught in her throat, a dam between her and all the things she had to say. All the things she had to confess. 

The kettle whistled, saving her for the moment. Trish poured the water, carried the mugs to the island and took a seat. She set one of the mugs in front of the stool beside her, her eyes pleading as they met Jessica's. 

Pleading. Not demanding. 

She sat down slowly. Her hands were shaking as she reached out to hold the cup. Not to lift it, just to hold it, feel the warmth seep into her hands. She inhaled deeply, tried to suck in as much air as she could. It was the first free breath she'd taken in so long. It almost shattered her. She pitched forward, hunched over the mug, resting her head on her arms. Her chest heaved, her body hurt, but it almost felt like _hers_ again. 

The hand on her back made her gasp, and she stood up, knocking the tea, toppling the stool. She was hyperventilating, panic gripped her throat tightly. "Don't - don't touch - god." She clasped a hand over her mouth and backed up, until her back hit the wall. She slid down slowly, pulled her knees to her chest and held them there tightly. 

"Oh, Jessica..." Trish whispered. It was so soft, so gentle, so full of  _care_. She didn't even look twice at the spilled tea spreading across her counter, dripping onto the floor. She just walked over, stopped a few feet away, and knelt down in front of her sister. 

Jessica couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't think,  _couldn't couldn't couldn't._ Her body wasn't used to functioning on its own. Her mind didn't know how to work anymore. She was lost, so lost, even though she was home, and it just -

"Hey," Trish said softly, pulling her out of her thoughts. Jessica looked up at her, jaw clenched tight, every muscle in her body tense. Trish was looking at her with a fierce gaze in her eye, but even as messed up as she was, Jessica knew that fire wasn't directed at her. To her, it was nothing more than warmth. "I don't know who that guy was. Or what he did to you," she whispered, her voice determined. Jessica flinched at the mere thought of him, but kept her gaze on her sister. "But you  _got away_. You're here now, you're safe," Trish continued. She held out her hand, didn't demand she take it, didn't order it. It was just an offering. "And I'm so proud of you. I'm proud of you for that, Jess. You  _survived_."

Jessica took her hand, and broke down completely. But Trish held her hand through the sobs, through the panted gasps of  _I'm sorry, I didn't want it but I wanted it, I hate him, he made me, I killed - oh god, I killed her_. Trish kept whispering to her, kept saying those words over and over.  _You survived. You survived. You survived._

* * *

 

Jessica stands up. She can't sit still anymore. One hand is drumming furiously against her jeans, the other somehow, has made its way to her stomach. Sh paces over to a painting, some new thing she hasn't seen before. "Do you ever get tired of this art deco crap?" she asks, eager to turn the conversation however she can. Even with Trish, there's some shit she can't talk about. A failing of hers, not her sister's.

"I'm surprised you even know what art deco is," Trish quips, rolling her eyes. She stands up, walks over to stand beside Jessica. "For the record, art deco is mostly about buildings," she says, smirking lightly. She nods to the painting. "Do you like it?" 

Jessica glances at it, shaking her head. "It looks like a blur of colors. How the fuck is that art?" Blue blobs on blue background, splashes of red and white scattered across. 

"It's called abstract, Jess," Trish replies. "I bought it off a guy I interviewed last week. With you in mind, actually."

"Why? Because it looks like something I'd puke up on a typical Saturday?"

Trish ignores her. "It's by a man named Jamir Sayyad. He grew up in this small town called Tuljapur. He'd always wanted to be an artist, but he had to work for it. Not an easy life," she explains, voice lilting. Teasing that there's more to this, that Jessica should listen. Jessica glances away, shifts her weight on her feet, but she is. Listening. "[It's called Mother's Love](http://images.mid-day.com/images/2014/jul/5Mother-1.jpg)," Trish continues. "His favorite. And mine. It's about how a mother showers love on her child, in the womb and after birth. He calls it a portrait of that love, the 'utmost care.'"

Her mouth goes dry. Her hand is still on her stomach, and it feels like there's a black hole in there. Not a baby, not a _person_. "Utmost care," Jessica repeats, biting her lip. "That's a load of bullshit."

Trish laughs, lightly, under her breath. "Yeah," she says, stepping back, walking back to the couch. "Maybe it is."

"Not every mother," Jessica says, breathes coming quicker now. "Is good at that 'showering love' shit. You know that," she says darkly. 

Her sister doesn't react to the implication of her mother. Normally, even coming close to invoking Ms. Walker is enough to make Trish glare at her, her mouth pull into a frown, her eyes turn to warforged steel. Tonight, she just sits down, pulls her blanket across her again, and pats the couch. "I do," she says. "But not every mom is like mine," she says simply. She's got that  _determined_ look to her face now, her chin held high. Jessica would be proud, knows how hard she's worked to get to that point, but as it's being used against her, she's irritated. 

She still walks over, sit down next to Trish. Leans back against the couch, and stares up at the ceiling. 

Trish is like a dog with a bone though, and she doesn't give up easy. "You don't ever talk about your mom, Jess. What was she like?"

 _Amazing,_ she thinks.  _Perfect. Funny and brilliant and wonderful, and I wasted every second._ "Better than yours," she says, instead of any of that. It's an old wound, but occasionally, it flares up. Stings just like it did that first day in the hospital when she heard it, the first thing she was conscious of when she woke up. 

"That's not exactly hard," Trish prompts. But Jessica turns her head, gives her a look. She might've brought up mothers first, but they're not going there tonight. "Are you okay?" Trish asks instead. "All this... it's a lot. A lot of changes, mostly good -"

"Mostly?" Jessica asks, smirking a little. 

"Well, I'm not looking forward to holding your hair back during morning sickness," Trish replies, but she's smirking too. She'll be there, that goes without saying. Every step of the way, whether Jessica likes it or not. 

Jessica tugs some of the blanket over her lap. "I'm fine," she says on instinct. Then she hesitates, biting her lip, shifting a little to try and get comfortable. "I'm - getting used to it."

"Being pregnant?" Trish asks.

She nods, inching a little closer to Trish. She doesn't usually let herself get this close, but fuck it. Tonight, she's sober, pregnant, and goddamn exhausted. She's giving in a little here, before she implodes. "I don't know how I'm going to do this, Trish," she says softly. She doesn't mean the pregnancy. She means all of it. Everything that's coming. Nine months feels like a ticking time clock over her head. Counting down to an explosion... or the lack of one. She's not sure which will be worse. She can't even picture it. The future's always been beyond her. 

Trish's hand finds hers under the blanket. "I can tell you one thing," she whispers. "You're not going to do it alone, Jessica."

A small smile crosses her face. Jessica finally gives in completely, and lays her head on Trish's shoulder. Like she's the one with superstrength, and some days, Jessica is convinced she is. She's always been the stronger one. "Matt told me he loved me," she says quietly. 

"That's great," Trish replies, and Jessica doesn't even have to look at her to know she's smiling. A pause. "Tell me you said it back to him. He's amazing, Jess."

"He dresses up in a gimp suit. Let's not get crazy." They both laugh softly. "But yeah," Jessica murmurs. "He's not bad." She shifts her head, looks up at Trish, who squeezes her hand gently. "Love him almost as much as I love you. I guess," she says, because she can't help herself. 


End file.
